Globular Cluster Messier 80 (M80 or NGC 6093) is a globular cluster that can be found in the constellation Scorpius. M80 lies at a distance of about 32,600 light-years and is one of the densest globular clusters in our galaxy.

Tech Specs: Sky-Watcher Esprit 120mm ED Triplet APO Refractor, Canon 6D stock camera, ISO 3200, 10 x 60 second exposures with dark/bias frames, guided using a ZWO ASI290MC and Orion 60mm guide scope. Image date: June 23, 2019. Location: The Dark Side Observatory, Weatherly, PA, USA.

M71 is about 12,000 light years away from Earth and is about 27 light years across. Up until the 1970’s this cluster was designated as a densely packed open cluster because of the loose central region, today it is designated as a loosely concentrated globular cluster with a young age of 9-10 billion years.

Tech Specs: Meade 12” LX-90, ZWO ASI071mc-Pro, 29 x 60 second exposures, guided using a ZWO ASI290MC and Orion 60mm guide scope. Captured using Sequence Generator Pro and processed using PixInsight. Image date: May 25, 2020. Location: The Dark Side Observatory, Weatherly, PA, USA.

Messier 14 (M14 or NGC 6402) is a globular cluster in a rather empty area of the constellation Ophiuchus. It was discovered in 1764 by the French astronomer Charles Messier who described it as a “nebula without stars, not large, faint, and round”. M14 is approximately 29,000 light-years distant. You will definitely need binoculars or a small telescope to see this cluster.

Observation data (J2000 epoch)

Class: VIII

Constellation: Ophiuchus

Right ascension: 17h 37m 36.15s

Declination: –03° 14′ 45.3″

Distance: 30.3 kly

Apparent magnitude (V): 7.6

Apparent dimensions (V): 11.0′

Tech Specs: Sky-Watcher Esprit 120ED Telescope, ZWO ASI2600MC camera running at 0F, 81x60 seconds guided exposures, Sky-Watcher EQ6R-Pro pier mounted, ZWO EAF and ASIAir Pro, processed in DSS and PixInsight. Image Date: May 18, 2023. Location: The Dark Side Observatory (W59), Weatherly, PA, USA (Bortle Class 4).

Comet C/2021 A1 (Leonard)

Messier 3 / M3 / NGC 5272

Comet Leonard appeared to pass between the Whale Galaxy (NGC4631) and the Crowbar Galaxy (NGC4656) in late November. It then passed within a few arcminutes of Messier 3 on December 3rd, creating this spectacular conjunction. These objects may seem close, but they are extremely far apart: the light from the comet took about 3.5 minutes to reach Earth, while the light from the cluster has been traveling through space for 34,000 years.

Comet Leonard was predicted to become the brightest comet of 2021 around mid-December. It just barely achieved naked-eye visibility for northern observers before it was lost in the morning twilight. The comet will reach perihelion on January 3, 2022, marking the end of its 40,000-year journey to the inner Solar System. It will then be ejected into interstellar space, never to return.

Apparent magnitude: 6.2 (estimate from Stellarium)

Distance from Earth: 0.438 AU

Orbital period: 8,000 years (before ejection)

Velocity (relative to Sun): 28 mile/s (45 km/s)

Comet/starfield total integration: 1 hour 19 minutes

158 x 30 seconds ISO1600 [Bortle 6 in SC]

-

M3 total integration: 8 hours 48 minutes

446 x 60 seconds ISO800 [Bortle 6 in VA]

41 x 120 seconds ISO200 [Bortle 8/9 in FL]

Stacked separately for comet and stars, with extra M3 detail blended in from a previous image: flic.kr/p/2kdWmeC

Summary of processing details here: www.cloudynights.com/topic/803224-comet-leonard-and-messi...

Location: Summerville, SC (comet and stars), Charlottesville, VA and Coral Springs, FL (M3 core)

SQM: 18.99 mag/arcsec^2, 19.32 mag/arcsec^2, 18.20 mag/arcsec^2 (Bortle 6, 6, and 8/9 respectively)

Camera: Canon T3i (stock/unmodified)

Average camera temperature: 90 F (32 C)

Telescope: Explore Scientific ED80 f/6.0 Apochromatic Refractor (with ES field flattener)

Mount: Orion Sirius EQ-G

Guide scope: Svbony 50mm f/4.0 Guide Scope

Guide camera: Orion StarShoot AutoGuider

Capture software: N.I.N.A., PlateSolve2, PHD2

Processing software: PixInsight, Paint.NET

Messier 3 (also known as M3 or NGC 5272) is a globular cluster found in the northern constellation of Canes Venatici. M3 is one of the three brightest globular clusters in the Northern hemisphere (along with M13 and M5). This cluster is made up of around 500,000 stars. It is estimated to be 11.4 billion years old. It is located at a distance of about 33,900 light-years away from Earth.

Observation data (J2000 epoch)

Class: VI

Constellation: Canes Venatici

Right ascension: 13h 42m 11.62s

Declination: +28° 22′ 38.2″

Distance: 33.9 kly

Apparent magnitude (V): 6.39

Apparent dimensions (V): 18′.0

Tech Specs: Sky-Watcher Esprit 120ED Telescope, ZWO AS2600mc-Pro running at -10C, Celestron CGEM-DX mount, 90 x 60 second guided exposures, darks from the library and flats at the end of imaging, focused with a ZWO EAF, controlled with a ZWO ASIAir Pro. Processed using PixInsight and DSS. Image Date: February 15, 2023. Location: The Dark Side Observatory (W59), Weatherly, PA, USA (Bortle Class 4).

Messier (M2) is the first globular cluster listed in the Messier catalog and is located about 37,000 light years away from Earth. M2 is located in the constellation Aquarius and is one of the largest globular clusters. It has an estimated diameter of 150 light years and contains over 150,000 stars bound together by their mutual gravitational attraction.

Tech Specs: Meade 12” LX-90, ZWO ASI071mc-Pro, 21 x 60 second exposures, guided using a ZWO ASI290MC and Orion 60mm guide scope. Captured using Sequence Generator Pro and processed using PixInsight. Image date: September 9, 2020. Location: The Dark Side Observatory, Weatherly, PA, USA.

Here is Palomar 8 from the catalog of 15 Palomar Globular Clusters. Palomar 8 is found in the constellation Sagittarius, has a magnitude of 11.0 and a diameter of 5.2'.

Tech Specs: Sky-Watcher Esprit 120mm ED Triplet APO Refractor, Celestron CGEM-DX mount, Canon 6D stock camera, ISO 3200, 13 x 60 second exposures with dark/bias frames, guided using a ZWO ASI290MC and Orion 60mm guide scope. Image date: October 1, 2018. Location: The Dark Side Observatory, Weatherly, PA, USA.

Messier 12 (M12 or NGC 6218 in the New General Catalog) is a globular cluster in the constellation Ophiuchus. It is also referred to as the “Gumball Globular”. It was discovered in 1764 by the French astronomer Charles Messier who described it as a “nebula without stars”. M12 is approximately 15,700 light-years distant. You will definitely need binoculars or a small telescope to see this cluster. This cluster contains about 200,000 stars, the brightest of them are about 12th magnitude.

Observation data (J2000 epoch)

Class: IX

Constellation: Ophiuchus

Right ascension: 16h 47m 14.18s

Declination: –01° 56′ 54.7″

Distance: 16.44 ± 0.16 kly

Apparent magnitude (V): 6.7

Apparent dimensions (V): 16′.0

Tech Specs: Sky-Watcher Esprit 120ED Telescope, ZWO ASI2600MC camera running at 0F, 90x60 seconds guided exposures, Sky-Watcher EQ6R-Pro pier mounted, ZWO EAF and ASIAir Pro, processed in DSS and PixInsight. Image Date: May 11, 2023. Location: The Dark Side Observatory (W59), Weatherly, PA, USA (Bortle Class 4).

Messier 13, also referred to as the Great Globular Cluster in Hercules, is one of the brightest and best known globular clusters in the northern skies. It shines at a magnitude of 5.8, is about 22,200 light years away and contains an estimated 300,000 stars.

Tech Specs: Meade 12” LX-90, Celestron CGEM-DX pier mounted, ZWO ASI071mc-Pro, Antares Focal Reducer, 98 x 60 second at -10C, 30 darks and 30 flats, guided using a ZWO ASI290MC and Orion 60mm guide scope. Captured using Sequence Generator Pro and processed using PixInsight. Image date: April 5, 2021. Location: The Dark Side Observatory, Weatherly, PA, USA (Bortle Class 4).

Imaged waiting for the Pleiades to get high enough above the horizon (previous images).

77 x 1 minute exposures

Technical details essentially the same as the Pleiades images.

When observed with the unaided eye, Omega Centauri, the object in this image, appears as a fuzzy, faint star. But the blue orb we see here is, in fact, a collection of stars – 10 million of them. You cannot count them all, but in this sharp, beautiful image you can see a few of the numerous pinpoints of bright light that make up this unique cluster.

The image was taken by Wouter van Reeven, a software engineer at ESA's European Space Astronomy Centre near Madrid, Spain, during his recent visit to Chile to observe the July total solar eclipse. From his home base in Spain the cluster only grazes the horizon, making it near-impossible to image, but from the La Silla Observatory in Chile it was high in the sky, presenting the ideal opportunity to photograph it.

Omega Centauri is a picture-perfect example of a globular cluster: tightly bound by gravity, it has a very high density of stars at its centre and a nearly perfect spherical shape (the name ‘globular cluster’ comes from the latin word for small sphere, globulus). It lives in the halo of the Milky Way, at a distance of about 15 800 light years from Earth.

As other globular clusters, Omega Centauri is made up of very old stars and it is almost devoid of gas and dust, indicating star formation in the cluster has long ceased. Its stars have a low proportion of elements heavier than hydrogen and helium, signaling they were formed earlier in the history of the Universe than stars like our Sun. Unlike in many other globular clusters, however, the stars in Omega Centauri don’t all have the same age and chemical abundances, making astronomers puzzle over the formation and evolution of this cluster. Some scientists have even suggested that Omega Centauri may not be a true cluster at all, but rather the leftovers of a dwarf galaxy that collided with the Milky Way.

Omega Centauri is also special in many other ways, not least because of the sheer number of stars it contains. It is the largest globular cluster in our galaxy, at about 150 light years in diameter, and is also the brightest and most massive of its type, its stars having a combined mass of about four million solar masses.

Omega Centauri can be seen with the naked eye under dark skies and imaging it doesn’t require long exposure times. To create the composition we see here, Wouter combined eight images taken with an exposure time of 10 seconds, seven images of 30 seconds each and another seven images of 60 seconds each. He used a SkyWatcher Esprit 80 ED telescope and a Canon EOS 200D camera.

Credits: ESA/CESAR/Wouter van Reeven, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO

Messier 10 (or M10) is a globular cluster in the constellation Ophiuchus. It is approximately 15,000 light years away. From Wikipedia, “A globular cluster is a spherical collection of stars that orbits a galactic core as a satellite. Globular clusters are very tightly bound by gravity, which gives them their spherical shapes and relatively high stellar densities toward their centers.”

Tech Specs: Sky-Watcher Esprit 120mm ED Triplet APO Refractor, Canon 6D, ISO 3200, 10 x 60 second exposures with dark/bias frames, guided using a ZWO ASI290MC and Orion 60mm guide scope. Image date: June 22, 2019. Location: The Dark Side Observatory, Weatherly, PA, USA.

Single frame taken with a Canon 50mm F/1.8 - 10sec exp ISO3200. This lens only cost me $90 on ebay, what a bargain! No wonder many refer to this lens as their 'Nifty Fifty'.

Levels stretched in RAW and Photoshop.

Comet Garradd passing by globular cluster Messier 15. Taken on 3. august 2011. this was an image I never had the skills to process. So my friend Neven Krčmarek had a go, and the result is fantastic! Finally, after almost exaclty 12 years the reult is here!

Taken with Pentax 105 apo refractor on Celestron CGE mount and SBIG STL-11000M camera. Single LRGB exposures were 2 minutes, for 68 minute total. Amazing work, I suggest you contact Neven if you need really professional processing of your images!

The Globular Cluster M10 resides at the center of the constellation Ophiuchus (the Serpent Holder). This large constellation takes up a large section of the summer night sky. Ophiuchus is well endowed with globular clusters with well over a dozen within reach of my 155mm refractor from the light-polluted skies above my observing deck at the house. M10 is my favorite Ophiuchus globular.

Additional Astronomy drawings can be seen at: www.orrastrodrawing.com

This image, from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope’s Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS), reveals thousands of globular clusters lying at the core of a galaxy cluster. It was created by a Hubble survey that drew on data from three of the telescope’s separate observing programmes to explore the centre of the Coma cluster, a huge gathering of over 1000 galaxies, about 320 million light-years away, all bound together by gravity.

Astronomers spotted over 22 000 globular clusters, some of which had formed a bridge connecting a pair of well-known interacting galaxies (NGC 4889 and NGC 4874). A globular cluster is a spherical group of stars that usually orbits a galaxy as a self-contained satellite. However, the globular clusters studied here are of a different type, intracluster globular clusters. Specifically, these are globular clusters that are not bound to an individual galaxy, but to a galaxy cluster — in this case, Coma.

While globular clusters orbiting our Milky Way reveal themselves as sparkling spherical assemblies of densely packed stars, at the distance of the Comla cluster, they only appear as tiny dots of light, even to Hubble's advanced vision. However, a characteristic feature of globular clusters is their colour; since the stars in any given cluster all formed at around the same time and from the same “stuff”, they usually have a consistent colour. In this way, the astronomers were able to identify the clusters — and rule out background galaxies lying in the same region of sky — by analysing their colour and size, painting a beautiful family portrait of Coma and its clusters.

With the help of the identified globular clusters astronomers can map the distribution of matter and — even more important — of dark matter in the Coma cluster. The Coma Cluster was one of the first places where observed gravitational anomalies indicated the existence of dark matter.

Credits: NASA, ESA, J. Mack, and J. Madrid et al., CC BY 4.0

Messier 3 (also known as M3 or NGC 5272) is a globular cluster found in the northern constellation of Canes Venatici. M3 is one of the three brightest globular clusters in the Northern hemisphere (along with M13 and M5). This cluster is made up of around 500,000 stars. It is estimated to be 11.4 billion years old. It is located at a distance of about 33,900 light-years away from Earth.

Observation data (J2000 epoch)

Class: VI

Constellation: Canes Venatici

Right ascension: 13h 42m 11.62s

Declination: +28° 22′ 38.2″

Distance: 33.9 kly

Apparent magnitude (V): 6.39

Apparent dimensions (V): 18′.0

Tech Specs: Meade 12” LX-90, Celestron CGEM-DX pier mounted, Antares Focal Reducer, ZWO ASI290MC and ASI071MC-Pro, ZWO AAPlus, ZWO EAF, 72 x 60 seconds at 0C plus darks and flats, processed using PixInsight and DSS. Image Date: May 30, 2022. Location: The Dark Side Observatory, Weatherly, PA, USA (Bortle Class 4).

Here is an image I captured last night showing (from top to bottom) Saturn, Mars and Antares. Do you see the fuzzy ball to the lower right of Antares? That is a globular cluster known as the Cat’s Eye or Messier 4.

Tech Specs: Canon T4i, Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L USM lens, iOptron SkyTracker, ISO 800, 30 seconds, f/2.8, 73mm.

Messier 12 (M12 or NGC 6218 in the New General Catalog) is a globular cluster in the constellation Ophiuchus. It is also referred to as the “Gumball Globular”. It was discovered in 1764 by the French astronomer Charles Messier who described it as a “nebula without stars”. M12 is approximately 15,700 light-years distant. You will definitely need binoculars or a small telescope to see this cluster. This cluster contains about 200,000 stars, the brightest of them are about 12th magnitude.

Tech Specs: Meade 12” LX-90, ZWO ASI071mc-Pro, 20 x 60 second exposures, guided using a ZWO ASI290MC and Orion 60mm guide scope. Captured using Sequence Generator Pro and processed using PixInsight. Image date: May 25, 2020. Location: The Dark Side Observatory, Weatherly, PA, USA.

NGC 5466 is a globular cluster that exhibits a low surface brightness and a less dense core compared to other globular clusters. Burnham lists this cluster at a magnitude of 9.0 and gives it a Class XII (in the Shapley–Sawyer Concentration Class, this is the lowest concentrated center of globular clusters).

Tech Specs: Meade 12” LX-90, Celestron CGEM-DX pier mounted, ZWO ASI071mc-Pro, Antares Focal Reducer, 107 x 60 second at -10C, 30 darks and 30 flats, guided using a ZWO ASI290MC and Orion 60mm guide scope. Captured using Sequence Generator Pro and processed using PixInsight. Image date: April 3, 2021. Location: The Dark Side Observatory, Weatherly, PA, USA (Bortle Class 4).

NGC 6366 is a loose globular cluster found in the constellation Ophiuchus. It has a Shapley–Sawyer Concentration Class of XI, which gives it a real loose central core (XII having almost no central core).

Tech Specs: Sky-Watcher Esprit 120mm ED Triplet APO Refractor, Canon 6D, ISO 3200, 20 x 60 seconds (with darks and bias frames), guided using a ZWO ASI290MC and 60mm guide scope. Stacked with DSS and processed in ImagesPlus. Image date: 29 July 2019. Location: The Dark Side Observatory in Weatherly, PA, USA.

M15 è un ammasso globulare nella costellazione di Pegaso: il suo diametro apparente è di 18' (circa 1/3 del diametro apparente della Luna piena) e magnitudine 6.2 (può essere visto con un binocolo sotto un cielo scuro).

L'ammasso contiene molte stelle variabili, più di 1110, e questo ha permesso di stimare la sua distanza in 33600 anni luce dalla Terra.

Questo ammasso ha due caratteristiche: è uno dei più densi della Via Lattea e contiene al suo interno una nebulosa planetaria (Pease 1, scoperta nel 1927 su immagini prese all'Osservatorio di Monte Wilson, non visibile nella mia immagine).

Per cercare di contenere la saturazione del nucleo, ho combinato pose "lunghe" da 300" l'una con pose "corte" da 15" l'una.

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M15 is a globular cluster in the constellation of Pegasus; it has an apparent diameter of 18’ and magnitude 6.2.

The cluster contains many variable stars, as many as 110, which allowed us to estimate a distance of 33,600 light years.

This cluster has two peculiar characteristics: it is one of the densest in the Milky Way and contains a planetary nebula (Pease 1, discovered in 1927 on photos taken by the Mount Wilson Observatory).

Technical data

Image taken on 4/28/30 September and 7 December 2019 from Promiod (Aosta Valley, Italy)

RC12 GSO Truss (diameter 304mm, focal lenght 2432mm)

Mount GM2000 HPSII

CCD Moravian G3-16200 with filters Astrodon Tru-Balance Gen2 E-Serie

Exposures “long”: L 34x300", R 9x300”, G 12x300", B 10x300”, all in bin2 with sensor temperature -20C

Exposures “short”: L 15x15", R 15x15”, G 15x15", B 15x15”, all in bin2 with sensor temperature -30C

Total exposure 5.8h

Guide with OAG Moravian and Moravian camera G1-0301

The whole imaging session was managed by Voyager sw

Post processing with Pixinsight 1.8 e Photoshop

www.robertomarinoni.com

It has been about two years since I last imaged M92 in Hercules and I decided to try some short exposures using the Meade 12” now that it is mounted on the Celestron CGEM-DX mount.

M92 is a bright, compact globular cluster located in the northern section of Hercules. I think Robert Burnham said it best, “This is a beautiful rich globular cluster which in almost any other constellation would be considered a major show object; in Hercules it has been somewhat overshadowed by the splendor of the fabulous M13.” (Burnham’s Celestial Handbook – Volume 2 – Robert Burnham Jr.)

The image is composed of 20 x 15 second images at ISO 3200 with additional dark and bias frames. Tech Info: Meade LX90 12” telescope, Antares Focal Reducer, and Canon 6D camera. Imaging was done on July 27, 2016.

The Hercules Cluster is a large collection of stars called a globular cluster. Globular clusters are gravitationally bound densely packed groups of stars; it is estimated the Hercules Cluster contains ~300,000 stars. As the name suggests, it is found in the constellation Hercules and is easily visible with binoculars or a telescope. This cluster is ~25,000 lightyears away from Earth and ~145 lightyears across.

I love observing the Hercules Cluster through my telescope as it is one of the brightest globular clusters visible in the northern hemisphere. When I invite the public to view the night sky through my scope it is one of the objects we often look at.

Shot from my backyard near Taos, New Mexico.

Equipment:

SkyWatcher EQ6-R Mount

Nikon 800mm f/5.6 AI-S - shot at f/8

Nikon 1.4x Teleconverter

Sony a7RIII (unmodified)

ZWO 30mm Guide Scope

GPCAM2 Mono Camera

Acquisition:

Taos, NM: my backyard - Bortle 3

55 x 121" for 1 hour 50 min and 55 sec of exposure time.

8 dark frames

15 flats frames

15 bias frames

Software:

SharpCap

PHD2

PixInsight

Lightroom

Photoshop

My a7rIII and adapted Nikon 800mm f/5.6 AI-S lens were mounted to my SkyWatcher EQ6-R mount using a vixen rail. The guidescope/camera were fixed to the front of the rail. I used SharpCap to achieve "excellent" polar alignment. I shot ISO 1600, f/8 with a 1.4x teleconverter, making the focal length 1120mm. I took 121" exposures using PHD2 with my guidescope to keep tracking accurately. I brought the lights/darks/flats/bias frames into PixInsight for stacking and aligning and then used: STF, Cropping, Dynamic Background Extraction, BlurXTerminator, plate solving, color correction, NoiseXTerminator HDR, and then the background of the cluster was separated from the stars using StarXterminator, and both files processed and stretched separately and then recombined using PixelMath. That file was brought into Lightroom for Metadata and EXIF tags, light post-processing, and cropping. I used Photoshop to sharpen the final image.

Here is a very wide field view capturing both the Dumbbell Nebula (M27) and the globular cluster M71. M27 is the blue ball in the upper right corner and M71 is the tight ball of stars in the lower left corner.

Tech Specs: Williams Optics Redcat 51 APO, Celestron CGEM-DX mount, Canon 6D stock camera, ISO 3200, 5 x 60 second exposures with dark/bias frames, guided using a ZWO ASI290MC and Orion 60mm guide scope. Image date: September 25, 2019. Location: The Dark Side Observatory, Weatherly, PA, USA.

Imaged on 30 October 2021 when the object was still relatively low and in the light pollution dome in part; the Optolong L Pro does a reasonable job but of course doesn’t compare to imaging from a dark site. Still at least not much moon to worry about

EQ6/ED 80/ L Pro/ ZWO ASI 183 MC

19 x30 secs + 30 x 60 secs + 30 x 120 seconds= 1 hour and 40 minutes of exposure

Software:

NINA/ PHD 2/ Astro Pixel Processor/ Photoshop CS6

Location: Bortle 6

Moon Phase: waning crescent 33 %

M 13 is 145 light-years in diameter and composed of between 300,000, to more than half a million gravitationally bound stars in the constellation of Hercules.

It’s a spectacular star cluster to see in a telescope with its super bright core of hot blue stars.

The 1974 Arecibo message, which contained encoded information about the human race, DNA, atomic numbers, Earth's position and other information, was beamed from the Arecibo Observatory radio telescope towards Messier 13 as an experiment in contacting potential extraterrestrial civilisations in the cluster. M13 was chosen because it was a large, relatively close star cluster that was available at the time. The cluster will move through space during the transit time but opinions differ as to whether or not the cluster will be in a position to receive the message by the time that the message arrives. [Wikipedia]

My second attempt at this target. Previously imaged from my home in Spain using my Celestron C11 Edge HD in Bortle 4 skies, this image was taken using the Celestron C14 Edge HD telescope at the remote complex of Complejo Astronómico, Los Coloraos, Gorafe, Spain, Bortle class 3. Taken during the Full Moon and 98% Moon over two nights!

Also look out for the small galaxy in the top right of image designated as IC 4617. It is located 553 million light-years from our solar system and has an estimated diameter of 115,000 thousand light-years making it slightly larger than our own Milky Way.

A high resolution image with imaging details can be found on my Astrobin page at: astrob.in/274skm/0/

Thank you for looking.

Technical summary:

Captured: 2 Nights in April 2024

Location: Turismo Astronómico, Los Coloraos, Gorafe, Spain

Bortle Class: 3

Total Integration: 5h 56m

Filters: Red 53 x 60s, Green 62 x 60s, Blue 58 x 60s, UV/IR 367 x 30s

Pixel Scale: 0.4 arcsec/pixel

Telescope: Celestron C14 Edge HD

Image Camera: ZWO ASI6200MM Pro

Filters: Astronomik R, G, B, UV/IR

Mount: Skywatcher EQ 8

Computer: Minix NUC

Capture software: NINA, PHD2

Editing software: PixInsight, Adobe Lightroom

M92 was first discovered by the German astronomer Johann Elert Bode in 1777 and it's approximately 27,000 light years away in the constellation Hercules. It has an apparent 6.3 magnitude and contains roughly 330,000 stars!!

This was an opportunistic target. I've been imaging a different target for the last couple of nights, and when that one disappears I still have under 2 hours left of darkness. I decided to use that "extra" time to image M92 as it only needs 30s to 1 minute subs. The two days of spare change added up to a total of 3.5 hours integration with around 250 subs.

I used my William Optics FLT132 with Flattener 68III (1.0x). Antlia Triband RGB Ultra filter and ZWO ASI2600MC Pro camera on a ZWO AM5 mount.

Pre and post processed with PixInsight and Affinity Photo 2.

For more information, visit AstroBin:

app.astrobin.com/i/unkv3g

Thanks for looking.

Clear Skies.

Eduardo

M92 is a bright, compact globular cluster located in the northern section of Hercules. I think Robert Burnham said it best, “This is a beautiful rich globular cluster which in almost any other constellation would be considered a major show object; in Hercules it has been somewhat overshadowed by the splendor of the fabulous M13.” (Burnham’s Celestial Handbook – Volume 2 – Robert Burnham Jr.)

Tech Specs: Meade 12” LX-90, ZWO ASI071mc-Pro, 19 x 60 second exposures, guided using a ZWO ASI290MC and Orion 60mm guide scope. Captured using Sequence Generator Pro and processed using PixInsight. Image date: April 19, 2020. Location: The Dark Side Observatory, Weatherly, PA, USA.

Just over thirty minutes of 1min exposures at ISO800. 20 mins of darks, no flats. Stacked in DSS. Edited in Nebulosity and Lightroom.

M: iOptron EQ45-Pro

T: William Optics GTF81

C: ZWO ASI1600MC-Cooled

F: No Filter

G: PHD2

GC: ZWO ASI120mini [OAG]

RAW16; FITs

Temp: -15 DegC

Gain 200;

25 x Exp 15s

Frames: 25 Lights; 50 Darks; 50 Flats

60% Crop

Capture: SharpCap

Processed: APP; PS

Sky: No moon, calm, 30%cloud, mild, good seeing.

NGC 5466 is a globular cluster that exhibits a low surface brightness and a less dense core compared to other globulars. Burnham lists this cluster at a magnitude of 9.0 and gives it a Class XII (in the Shapley–Sawyer Concentration Class, this is the lowest concentrated center of the globulars).

•Class: XII

•Constellation: Boötes

•Right ascension: 14h 05m 27.29s

•Declination: +28° 32′ 04.0″

•Distance: 51,900 ly

•Apparent magnitude (V): 10.5

•Estimated age: 13.57 billion years

Imaging Specs: Meade 12" LX90, Canon 6D, 27 x 60 seconds at ISO 3200 (includes darks, bias and flats), guided, stacked with DSS, processed with ImagesPlus. Image Date: April 22, 2019. Location: The Dark Side Observatory, Weatherly, PA, USA.

Messier 13, also referred to as the Great Globular Cluster in Hercules, is one of the brightest and best known globular clusters in the northern skies. It shines at a magnitude of 5.8, is about 22,200 light years away and contains an estimated 300,000 stars.

Tech Specs: Sky-Watcher Esprit 120mm ED Triplet APO Refractor, Canon 6D stock camera, ISO 3200, 10 x 60 second with dark/bias frames, guided using a ZWO ASI290MC and Orion 60mm guide scope. Image date: 31 May 2019. Location: The Dark Side Observatory in Weatherly, PA.

M 15 is about 33,600 light-years from Earth, and 175 light-years in diameter. Messier 15 is one of the most densely packed globulars known in the Milky Way galaxy. Its core has undergone a contraction known as "core collapse" and it has a central density cusp with an enormous number of stars (100,000)! surrounding what may be a central black hole.

this is LRGB 4.25 hours total integration.

OTA: Esprit 120mm 840 focal length f 7.0

Camera: QHY268C

Gain: 26

Filters: Optolong LRGB

Cooling Temperature: -10 Celsius

Mount: SkyWatcher EQ6-R with QHY Polemaster alignment

Autofocus: Sesto Senso 2

Guide scope: Orion 60mm focal length 240mm f/4

Auto-guiding: ZWO ASI290MM Mini

Control: Primaluce Eagle 4S

Calibrated PixInsight

Processed in Pixinsight and Lightroom

Phoenix, AZ - Bortle 9 skies

Could dying stars hold the secret to looking younger? New evidence from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope suggests that white dwarfs could continue to burn hydrogen in the final stages of their lives, causing them to appear more youthful than they actually are. This discovery could have consequences for how astronomers measure the ages of star clusters.

The prevalent view of white dwarfs as inert, slowly cooling stars has been challenged by observations from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. An international group of astronomers have discovered the first evidence that white dwarfs can slow down their rate of ageing by burning hydrogen on their surface.

“We have found the first observational evidence that white dwarfs can still undergo stable thermonuclear activity,” explained Jianxing Chen of the Alma Mater Studiorum Università di Bologna and the Italian National Institute for Astrophysics, who led this research. “This was quite a surprise, as it is at odds with what is commonly believed.”

White dwarfs are the slowly cooling stars which have cast off their outer layers during the last stages of their lives. They are common objects in the cosmos; roughly 98% of all the stars in the Universe will ultimately end up as white dwarfs, including our own Sun. Studying these cooling stages helps astronomers understand not only white dwarfs, but also their earlier stages as well.

To investigate the physics underpinning white dwarf evolution, astronomers compared cooling white dwarfs in two massive collections of stars: the globular clusters M3 and M13. These two clusters share many physical properties such as age and metallicity but the populations of stars which will eventually give rise to white dwarfs are different. In particular, the overall colour of stars at an evolutionary stage known as the Horizontal Branch are bluer in M13, indicating a population of hotter stars. This makes M3 and M13 together a perfect natural laboratory in which to test how different populations of white dwarfs cool.

“The superb quality of our Hubble observations provided us with a full view of the stellar populations of the two globular clusters,” continued Chen. “This allowed us to really contrast how stars evolve in M3 and M13.”

Using Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 the team observed M3 and M13 at near-ultraviolet wavelengths, allowing them to compare more than 700 white dwarfs in the two clusters. They found that M3 contains standard white dwarfs which are simply cooling stellar cores. M13, on the other hand, contains two populations of white dwarfs: standard white dwarfs and those which have managed to hold on to an outer envelope of hydrogen, allowing them to burn for longer and hence cool more slowly.

Comparing their results with computer simulations of stellar evolution in M13, the researchers were able to show that roughly 70% of the white dwarfs in M13 are burning hydrogen on their surfaces, slowing down the rate at which they are cooling.

This discovery could have consequences for how astronomers measure the ages of stars in the Milky Way. The evolution of white dwarfs has previously been modelled as a predictable cooling process. This relatively straightforward relationship between age and temperature has led astronomers to use the white dwarf cooling rate as a natural clock to determine the ages of star clusters, particularly globular and open clusters. However, white dwarfs burning hydrogen could cause these age estimates to be inaccurate by as much as 1 billion years.

Credits: ESA/Hubble & NASA, G. Piotto et al.; CC BY 4.0

Comet Lovejoy (C/2104 Q2) on the night of Dec. 27/28, 2014, as it was approaching the globular cluster M79 at upper right, in Lepus. The comet was naked eye, though only if you knew just where to look. But in binoculars it was an obvious fuzzball with the tail just barely visible extending to the north as in the photo, though just near the comet.

This is a stack of 5 x 3 minute exposures at ISO 2500 with the Canon 5D MkII and TMB 92mm refractor at f/4.4. Taken from near Silver City, New Mexico.

44x60" subs with Canon eos 600d on 6 inches newtonian and Lxd75 mount. Capture with Nina and PHD 2 GUIDING. Processing with SIRIL and GIMP

Celestron 9.25 + Celestron f/6.3 Reducer + ZWO ASI533MC + Optolong L-Pro

EQ6-R Pro

Guiding with ASI120MC-S + William Optics UniGuide 32mm

220 x 30" lights

No calibration frames

Nebulosity4 for Mac

PixInsight

Cairns, Australia

Bortle 6

M3 or NGC5272 globular cluster in Canes Venatici. Imaged from London on 16th May 2015.

TS65 Quad Astrograph, Atik 314L+ camera

31mins Luminance, 10 mins each channel RGB

Processed in DSS and PS CS6

The great globular cluster in Hercules

With a small(?) galaxy NGC 6207 nearby (much farther away).

The reddish star nearby is Eta Herculis.

Taken with Orion 80mm Refractor on a Losmandy mount.

From SpaceTelescope.org, “NGC 7006 resides in the outskirts of the Milky Way. It is about 135,000 light-years away, five times the distance between the Sun and the center of the galaxy, and it is part of the galactic halo. This roughly spherical region of the Milky Way is made up of dark matter, gas and sparsely distributed stellar clusters.”

Tech Specs: Meade 12” LX-90, Celestron CGEM-DX pier mounted, ZWO ASI071mc-Pro, Antares Focal Reducer, 28 x 60 second at -10C with darks and flats, guided using a ZWO ASI290MC and Orion 60mm guide scope. Captured using ZWO AAP and processed using PixInsight. Image date: July 28, 2021. Location: The Dark Side Observatory, Weatherly, PA, USA (Bortle Class 4).

Messier 28 or M28, also known as NGC 6626, is a globular cluster of stars in the constellation Sagittarius.

Camera: ZWO ASI533MC

Telescope: Explore Scientific ES152 F/8 APO triplet

Mount: AstroPhysics 1600GTO

12X 90s exposures

Two star clusters within the same small field of the sky about a degree apart, but vastly distant from us and about 1,000 light-years apart from each other. M53, at upper right consists of many thousands of old stars formed at around the same time. NGC 5053, at lower left is much looser and contains fewer stars.

A composite of 30 frames, 5 hours total exposure. Explore Scientific ED102 102mm f/7 refractor, ZWO ASI294MC camera, UV/IR cutoff filter, iOptron CEM25P mount, ASIAir controller. Processed in Astro Pixel Processor, and Lightroom.

Júpiter y el Río lechoso.

En el centro de esta imagen se puede apreciar una “estrella” brillante de color blanco, resulta ser el planeta gigante gaseoso Júpiter, ubicada actualmente en la constelación de Ofiuco. A la izquierda lo acompaña la Via láctea, se le llamo así ya que al ojo desnudo se aprecia como una mancha blanca que atraviesa el cielo nocturno ya que nuestros ojos no tienen la capacidad de ver los colores de estas estructuras que están a miles de años luz, por eso, a través de la cámara se pueden desfigurar los colores reales de estas estructuras. El color amarillo-anaranjado son cientos de miles de estrellas viejas ubicadas hacia el centro galáctico, las nebulosas negras son nubes densas que se encuentran entre nosotros y el centro galáctico, al ser tan densas bloquean la luz que se encuentra detrás de estas nubes, los colores rojizos y rosados son principalmente regiones de formación estelar, regiones Hll, donde las estrellas masivas y brillantes ionizan el gas circundante haciéndolas brillar de estos colores.

Imagen capturada el 12/05/2019.

Exif:

📷: Sony A77

Sigma 10-20 F3.5

20mm, F4, Iso 800

21 frames x 122s

Apilada por Sequator

Procesada con adobe Lightroom y Photoshop.

Autor: Diego Tapia

M Centauri (a nearby star) and

Caldwell 84 (a distant globular cluster)

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Image exposure: 25.5 minutes

Image Size: Size: 1.79° x 1.19°

Image date: 2024-05-13

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My Flickr Astronomy Album

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This cluster (M5 or NGC 5904) is too big for the setup I've been using a lot recently, so I shot it with the Hyperstar at a focal length of 535 mm instead of the 0.63x reducer at 1530 mm. I just got a set of 2" Optolong LRGB filters from Starizona to use with the Hyperstar and Atik 414-EX camera, and this was my first target.

L: 35 10s exposures

R: 66 13s exposures

G: 68 13s exposures

B: 69 13s exposures

All shot with a guided Celestron Edge HD 925 on the evening of 2022-06-28. Preprocessing with flats, dark, and bias frames in Nebulosity; registration, stacking, channel combination, and initial processing in PixInsight; final touches in Photoshop. North is at the top and east at the left.

Compare this with my first shot of this object from 10 years ago:

flic.kr/p/bN2DDF

I think I've made some progress

Here is a view of the most distant globular cluster in the Milky Way, NGC 2419, some have postulated that this may be an extra-galactic object. I have seen distances listed as high as 285,000 light-years away from Earth. It appears small and dim, but it is actually very large and very bright (if it was a bit closer to us), there are estimates of 300-400 million solar masses in this cluster.

You can also make out the galaxy NGC 2424, a barred spiral galaxy with a magnitude of 12.6. The view is dominated by the red giant star HD61294 in the lower right, magnitude 5.75, and 41 times larger than our Sun.

Tech Specs: Sky-Watcher Esprit 120mm ED Triplet APO Refractor, Celestron CGEM-DX mount (pier mounted), ZWO ASI071MC-Pro running at -25C, 30 x 60 second exposures, GAIN 200, guided using a ZWO ASI290MC and Orion 60mm guide scope. Captured using SharpCap v3.2. Image date: December 20, 2019. Location: The Dark Side Observatory, Weatherly, PA, USA.