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NGC 6712 is a Class IX globular cluster in the constellation Scutum. The cluster appears to be about 12 billion years old and may have originally been significantly more massive having undergone significant mass loss due to passes through the galactic disc.
Observation data (J2000 epoch)
Class: IX
Constellation: Scutum
Right ascension: 18h 53m 04.32s
Declination: –08° 42′ 21.5″
Distance: 26.4 kly
Apparent magnitude (V): +8.69
Apparent dimensions (V): 7.2'
Tech Specs: Sky-Watcher Esprit 120ED Telescope, ZWO ASI2600MC camera running at 0F, 54x60 seconds guided exposures, Sky-Watcher EQ6R-Pro pier mounted, ZWO EAF and ASIAir Pro, processed in DSS and PixInsight. Image Date: August 11, 2023. Location: The Dark Side Observatory (W59), Weatherly, PA, USA (Bortle Class 4).
En! The globular star cluster 47 Tucanae is a jewel of the southern sky.
Also known as NGC 104, it roams the halo of our Milky Way along with some 200 more globular stellar clusters.
It is the second brightest globular cluster (after Omega Centauri) seen from planet Earth. It is about 13,000 years old. Light and distance have been seen in a simple view of the small Magellanic Cloud in the constellation El Tucán.
The dense cluster is composed of several million stars in a volume of just 120 light years in diameter.
The giant red stars on the outskirts of the cluster are easy to distinguish as yellow stars in this clear telescopic portrait.
The globular cluster 47 is also home to the exotic binary X-ray star systems.
Es!
El cúmulo estelar globular 47 Tucanae es una joya del cielo del sur.
También conocido como NGC 104, vaga por el halo de nuestra Vía Láctea junto a unos 200 cúmulos estelares globulares más.
Es el segundo cúmulo globular más brillante (tras Omega Centauri) visto desde el planeta Tierra. Se trata de unos 13.000 años. La luz y la distancia se han visto en una vista simple de la pequeña Nube de Magallanes en la constelación de El Tucán.
El denso cúmulo está compuesto por varios millones de estrellas en un volumen de apenas 120 años luz de diámetro.
Las estrellas gigantes rojas de las afueras del cúmulo son fáciles de distinguir como estrellas amarillentas en este nítido retrato telescópico.
El cúmulo globular 47 también es hogar de los exóticos sistemas estelares binarios de rayos X.
Exif: SONY SLT-A77
F/5,6
1830s integration
ISO - 1600
DF: 300MM - Minolta APO 100-300
Captured in the Cajon del maipo on May 12, 2019
Messier 13 (M13 or NGC 6205) is 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.
Observation data (J2000 epoch)
Class: V
Constellation: Hercules
Right ascension: 16h 41m 41.24s
Declination: +36° 27′ 35.5″
Distance: 22.2 kly
Apparent magnitude (V): 5.8
Apparent dimensions (V): 20 arcminutes
Tech Specs: William Optics REDCAT 51 Telescope, ZWO ASI071MC camera running at -10F, Sky-Watcher EQ6R-Pro mount, ZWO EAF (ProAstroGear Black-CAT) and ASIAir Pro, guided using a ZWO 30mm f/4 mini guide scope and ZWO 120 mini, processed in PixInsight. Image Date: April 23, 2025. Location: The Dark Side Observatory (W59), Weatherly, PA, USA (Bortle Class 4).
Palomar 5 is a globular cluster and a member of the Palomar Globular Clusters group. It was discovered by Walter Baade in 1950, and independently found again by Albert George Wilson in 1955. There is a process of disruption acting on this cluster because of the gravitation of the Milky Way – in fact there are many stars leaving this cluster in the form of a stellar stream. The stream has a mass of 5000 solar masses and is 30,000 light years long. The cluster is currently about 60.6 kly from the Galactic Center. (Ref: Wikipedia)
This globular cluster has recently been found to harbor over 100 black holes in its center. You can read about here: earthsky.org/space/astronomers-find-100-black-holes-in-pa...
Observation data (J2000 epoch)
Class: XII
Constellation: Serpens
Right ascension: 15h 16m 05.3s
Declination: –00° 06′ 41″
Apparent magnitude (V): +11.75
Tech Specs: Sky-Watcher Esprit 120ED Telescope, ZWO ASI2600MC camera running at 0F, 108x60 seconds guided exposures, Sky-Watcher EQ6R-Pro pier mounted, ZWO EAF and ASIAir Pro, processed in DSS and PixInsight. Image Date: May 25, 2023. Location: The Dark Side Observatory (W59), Weatherly, PA, USA (Bortle Class 4).
A magnificent globular cluster, composed of hundreds of thousands of stars, visible here in Sydney at a maximum height of 20° above the northern horizon.
Details:
Designation: M13, The Hercules Cluster, NGC 6205
Constellation: Hercules
Visual magnitude: +5.8
Apparent size: 20′
Diameter: 135 light years.
Distance: 23,000 light years.
Exposure: 26 min (52 frames 29.8 sec)
Gain: 128
Date: 2019-07-22
Location: Outer suburban.
Conditions: clear.
There are many dwarf and irregular galaxies in the universe, they are vastly more numerous than spiral, elliptical and other galaxies and are part of a good percentage of the baryonic matter in the universe, some formed since the big bang and others have been wandering In intergalactic space after much of its matter was distorted and engulfed by larger galaxies, the Small Magellanic Cloud is one of them, on the right side of the image, more than 200 thousand light years away, it can be observed in the constellation of the Tucan. In the upper left corner is a cosmic swarm, globular cluster 47 Tucan, 16,700 light years away, visible to the naked eye in dark skies.
At the bottom we can find another cluster, it is NGC 362, more than 27 thousand light years away.
Captured on November 2, 2019 in Cajón del Maipo, Chile.
Omega Centauri has been known since antiquity. The Greek astronomer Ptolemy listed it in the star catalogue that he compiled in the mid-2nd century A.D. When Johannes Bayer assigned Greek letters to the brighter stars, he also mistook this cluster for a star, and designated it Omega Centauri.
Edmond Halley was the first to document Omega Centauri's nonstellar nature, listing it in 1677 as a "luminous spot or patch in Centaurus". Lacaille included it in his catalog as number I.5. John Herschel was the first to correctly identify it as a globular cluster, in the 1830s.
At a distance 15,600 light years, Omega Centauri is one of the nearest globular clusters to the Solar System. Its visual size of about 36' corresponds to a true diameter of 175 light years. As in all globular clusters, the stellar density increases rapidly toward the interior. The average distance between stars at its center is only about 0.1 light years.
Containing several million stars, and roughly 5 million solar masses, Omega Centauri is about 10 times as massive as a typical big globular, and about as massive as the smallest of whole galaxies. It is the brightest and most massive globular orbiting the Milky Way, and of all the globular clusters in the Local Group, only Mayall II (G1) in the Andromeda Galaxy (M 31) is more massive and luminous.
RA: 13h 28m 00.92s
DEC: -47° 35' 06.4"
Location: Centaurus
Distance: 17 kly
Magnitude: 3.7
Acquisition May 2018
Total acquisition time of 4.3 hours.
Technical Details
Data acquisition: Martin PUGH
Processing: Nicolas ROLLAND
Location: Yass, New South Whales, Australia
L 6 x 600 sec
R 7 x 600 sec
G 6 x 600 sec
B 6 x 600 sec
Optics: Planewave 17“ CDK @ F6.8
Mount: Paramount ME
CCD: SBIG STXL-11002 (AOX)
Pre Processing: CCDstack & Pixinsight
Post Processing: Photoshop CC
Text source : Livesky.com
This huge ball of stars predates our Sun. Long before mankind evolved, before the dinosaurs roamed and even before the Earth existed, several star globes condensed and orbited a young galaxy, the Way Milky Of the approximately 200 globular clusters that survive today, Omega Centauri is the largest, with some ten million stars. Omega Centauri is also the brightest globular cluster: with an apparent visual magnitude of 3.9 it is visible to the naked eye for southern observers. Cataloged as NGC 5139, Omega Centauri is about 18,000 light years away and is 150 light years across. Unlike many other globular clusters, Omega Centauri stars have different ages and several chemical traces, indicating that this 12-billion-year globular cluster has a complex history.
Captured 12, december, 2018.
Autor: Mario Poblete
This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image features the globular cluster NGC 2005. It’s not an unusual globular cluster in and of itself, but it is a peculiarity when compared to its surroundings. NGC 2005 is located about 750 light-years from the heart of the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), which is the Milky Way’s largest satellite galaxy some 162,000 light-years from Earth. Globular clusters are densely-packed groups of stars that can hold tens of thousands or millions of stars. Their density means they are tightly bound by gravity and therefore very stable. This stability contributes to their longevity: globular clusters can be billions of years old, and are often comprised of very old stars. Studying globular clusters in space can be a little like studying fossils on Earth: where fossils give insights into the characteristics of ancient plants and animals, globular clusters illuminate the characteristics of ancient stars.
Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, F. Niederhofer, L. Girardi
#NASAMarshall #NASA #astrophysics #NASAChandra #NASA #globularcluster
Stack of 43 15s ISO2500 exposures with a Nikon D5100 on a Celestron Edge HD 925 at focal length 2150 mm under Bortle 8/9 skies.
A stack of 24x60s exposures using a QHY22 camera on a 300mm F/4 Newtonian telescope. CLS filter. Off-axis guider.
Registered and Stack in DeepSkyStacker. Post-processing in PixInsight and GraphicConverter 11
This is one of the "better" globular clusters that is visible from the northern hemisphere. With a total magnitude of 6.2, this cluster is located just off to the west of the head (or nose) of the winged horse Pegasus (the constellation). M15 is also one of the oldest and most densely packed globular clusters in the Milky Way galaxy.
Photographed under moderately bright skies (light pollution) on the morning of September 8, 2015 using a 5 inch aperture, f/5.2 telescope and an unmodified Sony NEX-5R digital camera (ISO 800, a stack of one hundred and fifty-two images each exposed for 30 seconds, producing a total exposure integration time of one hour and sixteen minutes).
This image is best seen at full size (2048 x 1600) or in the Flickr light box (press the “L” key to enter the light box and/or click on the image to see it at a larger size).
Image processing done with PixInsight v1.8 and Photoshop CC 2015.
All rights reserved.
The Logoon (M8) and Trifid Nebula (M20) can be found in the constellation Sagittarius. This wide-field shot of the region was taken on May 14, 2016 and consists of 6 x 15 second images. Also captured in this image is the open cluster M21 and the globular cluster M28. They are at their highest elevation for Northern Latitudes at midnight over the next few weeks.
Equipment: Canon 6D, Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L USM lens, iOptron Skytracker, settings were ISO 2000, f/2.8 and 200mm.
Edited Hubble Space Telescope image of the globular cluster Terzan 2.
Original caption: The globular cluster Terzan 2 in the constellation Scorpio features in this observation from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. Globular clusters are stable, tightly gravitationally bound clusters of tens of thousands to millions of stars found in a wide variety of galaxies. The intense gravitational attraction between the closely packed stars gives globular clusters a regular, spherical shape. As a result, images of the hearts of globular clusters, such as this observation of Terzan 2, are crowded with a multitude of glittering stars. Hubble used both its Advanced Camera for Surveys and its Wide Field Camera 3 in this observation, taking advantage of the complementary capabilities of these instruments. Despite having only one primary mirror, Hubble’s design allows multiple instruments to be used to inspect astronomical objects. Light from distant astronomical objects enters Hubble and is collected by the telescope's 2.4-metre primary mirror; it is then reflected off the secondary mirror into the depths of the telescope, where smaller mirrors can direct light into individual instruments. Each of the four operational instruments on Hubble is a masterpiece of astronomical engineering in its own right, and contains an intricate array of mirrors and other optical elements to remove any aberrations or optical imperfections from observations, as well as filters which allow astronomers to observe specific wavelength ranges. The mirrors inside each instrument also correct for the slight imperfection of Hubble's primary mirror. The end result is a crystal-clear observation, such as this glittering portrait of Terzan 2.
It’s time to take a cosmic road trip using light as the highway and visit four stunning destinations across space. The vehicles for this space get-away are NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and James Webb Space Telescope (JWST).
The Cosmic Road Trip presents four distinct composite images from Chandra and JWST in a two-by-two grid, Rho Ophiuchi at lower right, the heart of the Orion Nebula at upper right, the galaxy NGC 3627 at lower left and the galaxy cluster MACS J0416.
Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO; Optical/Infrared: (Hubble) NASA/ESA/STScI; IR: (JWST) NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI
#NASAMarshall #NASA #astrophysics #NASAChandra #NASA #nebula #galaxy #galacticcluster #jwst
Read more about NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory
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 SCT Telescope, Antares Focal Reducer, ZWO ASI2600MC camera running at 0F, 81 x 60 second exposures, Celestron CGX-L pier mounted, ZWO EAF and ASIAir Pro, processed in PixInsight. Image Date: April 23, 2025. Location: The Dark Side Observatory (W59), Weatherly, PA, USA (Bortle Class 4).
Messier 56 è un ammasso globulare nella costellazione della Lira. Ha un diametro apparente di 8.8’, ovvero è circa 7 volte più piccolo della dimensione apparente della Luna vista ad occhio nudo; la sua magnitudine è di 8.3, quindi si tratta di un soggetto non particolarmente brillante.
Fisicamente dista dalla terra 32900 anni luce e ha un diametro reale di 84 anni luce.
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Messier 56 is a globular cluster in the constellation of the Lyre. It has an apparent diameter of 8.8 ’, which is about 7 times smaller than the apparent size of the Moon seen with the naked eye; its magnitude is 8.3, so it is a subject not particularly bright. Physically it is 32900 light-years away from the earth and has a real diameter of 84 light-years.
Technical data
Image taken on June 26/27 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
Exposure: L 21x300", RGB 9x300" for every color channel, all in bin2 with sensor temperature -10C
Total exposure 4h
guide with OAG Moravian
The whole imaging session was managed by sw Voyager
Post processing with Pixinsight 1.8 e Photoshop
Here is a wider view of the sky on the same night, with an inset showing the size and location of the region covered by this photo.
Taken with a TMB92L, Canon T3i DSLR, Orion SSAG autoguider and 50mm guidescope, and Celestron AVX mount. Consists of 33 130-second light frames and 33 130-second dark frames, all at ISO 800, as well as 32 flat and 50 bias frames. Captured with BackyardEOS, stacked in DeepSkyStacker, and processed in Photoshop.
This densely populated group of stars is the globular cluster NGC 1841, which is part of the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), a satellite galaxy of our Milky Way galaxy that lies about 162,000 light-years away. Satellite galaxies are bound by gravity in orbits around a more massive host galaxy. We typically think of the Andromeda Galaxy as our galaxy’s nearest galactic companion, but it is more accurate to say that Andromeda is the nearest galaxy that is not in orbit around the Milky Way galaxy. In fact, dozens of satellite galaxies orbit our galaxy and they are far closer than Andromeda. The largest and brightest of these is the LMC, which is easily visible to the unaided eye from the southern hemisphere under dark sky conditions away from light pollution.
The LMC is home to many globular clusters. These celestial bodies fall somewhere between open clusters – which are much less dense and tightly bound – and small, compact galaxies. Increasingly sophisticated observations reveal the stellar populations and characteristics of globular clusters are varied and complex, and we have yet to fully understand how these tightly packed groups of stars form. However, there are certain consistencies across all globular clusters: they are very stable and hold their shape for a long time, which means they are generally very old and contain large numbers of very old stars. Globular clusters are akin to celestial ‘fossils.’ Just as fossils provide insight into the early development of life on Earth, globular clusters such as NGC 1841 can provide insights into very early star formation in galaxies.
Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, A. Sarajedini
#NASA #NASAGoddard #NASAMarshall #NASAGoddard #HubbleSpaceTelescope #HST #ESA #globularcluster
Hearkening back to one of the earliest astrophotos I took back in 2004 (flic.kr/p/2BUxr), I've reprised this in 2021 with better equipment and darker skies. This area of Sagittarius features the Lagoon Nebula (M8), with IC 1274 off to its left, the Trifid Nebula (M20) above it, and open cluster M21 above that. Below the Lagoon are two very tiny globular clusters, NGC 6544 and NGC 6553.
I used a Radian Raptor 61 with a quad-band filter, which is why the reflection nebula of the Trifid is attenuated. 61 subexposures of 2 minutes each (~2 hours total) were captured with an astro-modified Canon 6D at ISO 1600 from the very dark skies of Palouse Falls, WA.
Astronomers observed a binary system with a neutron star (the extremely dense remnant left behind by a supernova explosion) in orbit with a low-mass companion acting in an unusual way. Using X-ray data from Chandra, researchers saw that Terzan 5 CX1 had traits of a "low-mass X-ray binary" before it started behaving like a millisecond pulsar, and then years later returned to its original role. In this image (right) of the Terzan 5 globular cluster, low, medium and high-energy X-rays detected by Chandra are colored red, green and blue respectively. An image from Hubble shows the same field of view in optical light.
Image credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/Univ. of Amsterdam/N.Degenaar, et al.; Optical: NASA, ESA
Here is a view of Antares and the constellation Scorpius rising in the southern skies with a hint of clouds. If you zoom in on the photo, you can see the large globular cluster Messier 4, The Cat’s Eye, to the right of Antares.
Tech Specs: Canon 6D with a Canon EF70-200mm f/2.8L USM lens tripod mounted. Single 10 second exposure, ISO 3200, 73mm, f/2.8, Tiffen star filter. Imaging was done on March 3, 2017 from Weatherly, Pennsylvania.
Omega Centauri (NGC 5139) is a globular cluster in the southern constellation of Centaurus. It is the largest globular cluster in the Milky Way with a diameter of ~150 light years and is one of the few globular clusters visible to the naked eye with an apparent magnitude of 3.9.
This image was taken with a 20” (510mm) f/4.4 CDK and an FLI ProLine PL09000 CCD at AAT Siding Spring in Australia. It consists of 25 x 60 seconds Luminance and 120 seconds for Red, Green and Blue channels.
Re-process as the green channel was too prominent on the original
47 Tucanae, 47 Tuc (or NGC 104) is a globular cluster located in the constellation Tucana. It is about 4.0 ± 0.35 kpc (13,000 ± 1,100 ly) away from Earth, and 120 light years across. 47 Tuc can be seen with the naked eye, with an apparent magnitude of 4.1.
Image Details:
Telescope: Astro-Physics 12" F/8 Mak Cass
Mount: Astro-Physics 1600GTO-AE
Camera: FLI 16803
10X 120s in R, G, B
This new NASA Hubble Space Telescope view shows the globular cluster NGC 2298, a sparkling collection of thousands of stars held together by their mutual gravitational attraction. Globular clusters are typically home to older populations of stars, and they mostly reside in the dusty outskirts of galaxies.
Scientists utilized Hubble’s unique ability to observe the cosmos across multiple wavelengths of light to study NGC 2298 in ultraviolet, visible, and near-infrared light. This valuable information helps astronomers better understand how globular clusters behave, including their internal movements, orbits, and the evolution of their stars.
Credit: NASA, ESA, G. Piotto (Universita degli Studi di Padova), and A. Sarajedini (Florida Atlantic University); Processing: Gladys Kober (NASA/Catholic University of America)
#NASA #NASAGoddard #NASAMarshall #NASAGoddard #galaxy #HubbleSpaceTelescope #HST #globularcluster #ESA
This frames the field in the southern constellation of Corona Australis, the Southern Crown, that is rich in bluish reflection nebulosity and brownish dusty absorption nebulas. Also in the field, but much more distant than the nebulas, is the globular star cluster NGC 6723.
The dark nebula complex is sometimes called the Anteater Nebula. Australian observers call the dense opaque area (the body of the Anteater) the "Field of Nothing," as a telescope at moderate power aimed at the area shows nothing at all, not even a star. The blue reflection nebulas are catalogued as NGC 6726, NGC 6727 and NGC 6729. The entire area is dubbed the Corona Australis Cloud Complex, or Dark Nebula Complex.
The field of view is about 3° by 2°.
Technical:
This is a stack of 19 x 4-minute exposures, unfiltered, through the Askar APO120 refractor with its 0.8x Reducer/Flattener for f/5.6 and 670mm focal length, and the Canon Ra camera at ISO 800. Taken October 3, 2024 from the Quailway Cottage near Rodeo, New Mexico, but in Arizona, at 32° N latitude. On the Astro-Physics AP400 mount, autoguided with the Lacerta MGEN3 stand-alone auto-guider. The field was low in the south in the early evening, and prone to some blurring and atmospheric refraction, but was still high enough to provide good sky quality for 80 minutes of shooting.
Equipment:
Celestron CGEM Mount
Nikon 500mm f/4 P Ai-s
Sony a7RIII (unmodified)
Altair 60mm Guide scope
GPCAM2 Mono Camera
Acquisition:
Taos, NM: my backyard - Bortle 3
12 x 240" for 48 minutes for exposure time.
5 dark frames
15 flats frames
15 bais frames
Guided
Software:
SharpCap
PHD2
DeepSkyStacker
Photoshop
My mount was polar aligned with SharpCap (what an amazing system for aligning). I'm not comfortable using my SCT as my lens yet. My solution is to piggy back my Sony a7RIII and adapted Nikon 500mm f/4 on a ADM dovetail rail on the top of my optical tube. I'm still new to autoguiding. I got some great detail of a galaxy with 3:30 second light frames. For this I stopped down the aperture to get diffraction spikes on the brighter stars and exposed my lights for 4 minutes. I used DeepSkyStacker to combine all frames and then processed the TIFF file in Photoshop using my skill set and relying on the famous Astronomy Tools Action Set.
Widefield view of globular cluster M3 in Canes Venatici
TS65 Quad Astrograph
Canon EOS Rebel T3i
stack of 80 30 second ISO 1600 exposures. Darks, Flats and Bias applied
Here's a shot I captured of the Messier 2 globular cluster this past Friday (September 11, 2015) at Frosty Drew Observatory in Charlestown, Rhode Island, USA. Messier 2 is found in the constellation Aquarius and resides at near 37,500 light years distant. The cluster is comprised of around 150,000 stars and has an elliptical shape.
Photo Details:
Camera: Canon 60D MagicLantern
1370mm
f/9
ISO: 5000
Exposure: 30 seconds * 8 frames
This is a median composite of 8 individual shots to reduce noise.
-Scott
This is a baseline image for my endeavor to autoguide a Meade LX850 (12" f/8) on a Losmandy G11 mount. I'll call this image "trick or treat" I just went through the while guiding and capture process accepting the guiding results, and accepted this image as is.
I have some to-do items to work on from the imaging session. I notice, especially when I pixel peek in other software, an odd shaped peak at about the 6 o'clock position of all of the stars. I know that collimation of the main scope was good, because I checked at the beginning of the session.
Main camera/scope: ZWO ASI6200MM-Pro/Meade LX850 (12" f/8)
Guide camera/scope: ZWO ASI290Mini/TeleVue Pronto (3" f/4.9)
This is a single 120s luminance exposure.
This image shows a globular cluster known as NGC 1651. Like the object in another recent Picture of the Week, it is located about 162 000 light-years away in the largest and brightest of the Milky Way’s satellite galaxies, the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). A notable feature of this image is that the globular cluster almost fills the entire image, even though globular clusters are only about 10 to 300 light-years in diameter (NGC 1651 has a diameter of roughly 120 light-years). In contrast, there are numerous Hubble Pictures of the Week that feature entire galaxies — which can be tens or hundreds of millions of light-years in diameter — that also more or less fill the whole image.
A common misconception is that Hubble and other large telescopes manage to observe wildly differently sized celestial objects by zooming in on them, as one would with a specialised camera here on Earth. However, whilst small telescopes might have the option to zoom in and out to a certain extent, large telescopes do not. Each telescope’s instrument has a fixed ‘field of view’ (the size of the region of sky that it can observe in a single observation). For example, the ultraviolet/visible light channel of Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3), the channel and instrument that were used to collect the data used in this image, has a field of view roughly one twelfth the diameter of the Moon as seen from Earth. Whenever WFC3 makes an observation, that is the size of the region of sky that it can observe.
The reason that Hubble can observe objects of such wildly different sizes is two-fold. Firstly, the distance to an object will determine how big it appears to be from Earth, so entire galaxies that are relatively far away might take up the same amount of space in the sky as a globular cluster like NGC 1651 that is relatively close by. In fact, there's a distant spiral galaxy lurking in this image, directly left of the cluster — though undoubtedly much larger than this star cluster, it appears small enough here to blend in with foreground stars! Secondly, multiple images spanning different parts of the sky can be mosaiced together to create single images of objects that are too big for Hubble’s field of view. This is a very complex task and is not typically done for Pictures of the Week, but it has been done for some of Hubble’s most iconic images.
[Image Description: A spherical collection of stars, which fills the whole view. The stars merge into a bright, bluish core in the centre, and form a sparse band around that out to the edges of the image. A few stars lie in front of the cluster, with visible diffraction spikes. The background is dark black.]
Credits: ESA/Hubble & NASA, L. Girardi, F. Niederhofer; CC BY 4.0
Messier 3 is a globular cluster of stars in the constellation Canes Venatici. It was the first Messier object to be discovered by Charles Messier himself. It is about 33,920 ly from earth, 11.4 billion years old, and approximately 180 ly in diameter. Also seen in the image (lower left) is the star HD 119081, a red giant with a diameter 11 times greater than our sun. The spiral galaxy NCG 5263 can be seen in the lower right of the image.
Rio Rancho NM Bortle 5/6 zone
April 6-7, 2022
William Optics Redcat 51
ZWO 183mc pro
ZWO 30mm f/4 mini guide scope and ZWO 120 Mini
Optolong L-Pro filter
ZWO ASI Air Pro
Sky-Watcher HEQ5
119 X 300s lights; with darks bias dithering
Gain 111 at -10C
Processed in DSS and PS
On the night of 15th / 16th July 2022 comet C/2017 K2 (PANSTARRS) was at its closest conjunction with the globular cluster Messier 10 so I had to get out there and image it.
William Optics 70mm refractor and Canon 1100D on an EQ5 mount on a permanent pier. The mount was tracking at sidereal rate. M10 is in Ophiuchus and it drops behind trees from the pier quite early, so I had to start imaging while it was still twilight. I shot more frames than I stacked but tried to only stack the best.
90 x 30 seconds at ISO-1600 stacked with 15 darks using Deep Sky Stacker. I did several versions of the stack, but this version was the best. It is only stacked on the stars so the comet is slight smeared because it had moved a bit during this session.
Processing was done in Photoshop, Lightroom and Fast Stone Image Viewer.
Messier 13 (M13 or NGC 6205) is 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.
Observation data (J2000 epoch)
Class: V
Constellation: Hercules
Right ascension: 16h 41m 41.24s
Declination: +36° 27′ 35.5″
Distance: 22.2 kly
Apparent magnitude (V): 5.8
Apparent dimensions (V): 20 arcminutes
Tech Specs: Orion 8” RC Telescope, ZWO ASI2600MC camera running at -10F, 2h30m using 60 second exposures, Celestron CGEM-DX pier mounted, ZWO EAF and ASIAir Plus, processed in PixInsight. Image Date: April 15, 2024. Location: The Dark Side Observatory (W59), Weatherly, PA, USA (Bortle Class 4).
Messier 13 (M13) was discovered by Edmond Halley in 1714. Charles Messier, on June 1, 1764 , added it to his list of objects not to mistake for comets; Messier's list, including Messier 13, eventually became known as the Messier Catalog. It has become a favorite listing of objects, fascinating to stargazers of all levels.
High overhead in August night skies, about one third of the way from Vega to Arcturus, four bright stars in the constellation of Hercules form the Keystone asterism. M13 can be seen partway between two of these stars, Zeta Herculis and Eta Herculis. Although only telescopes with great light-gathering capability fully resolve the stars of the Cluster, M13 can be visible to the naked eye depending on circumstances. With a low-power telescope, Messier 13 looks like a comet or fuzzy patch. With an apparent magnitude of 5.8, it is barely visible with the naked eye on clear nights.
In traditional binoculars, the Hercules Globular Cluster appears as a round patch of light. At least four inches of telescope aperture will allow resolving the stars in M13's outer extents as small pinpoints of light.
About 145 light-years in diameter, M13 is composed of several hundred thousand stars. M13 is 22,200–25,000 light-years away from Earth.
Compared to the stars in the neighborhood of the Sun, the stars of the M13 population are more than a hundred times denser. They are so densely packed together that they sometimes collide and produce new stars. The newly formed, young stars, so-called "blue stragglers," are particularly interesting to astronomers.
This image is my first foray into deep-sky color imaging using my dedicated color planetary camera, the ASI224MC. No flats, no darks, nor any other calibration frames. A set of 102 10-sec exposures were stacked using Sequator software.
ZWO ASI224MC camera
Explore Scientific ED80APO triplet refractor telescope
Celestron Advanced VX mount.
Messier 22 (M22 or NGC 6656) was photographed in July 2015. The final image is composed of 14, 30-second images captured at ISO 3200. A Canon 6D camera was mounted on a Celestron 6″ telescope at prime focus. The imaging system was mounted on an iOptron ZEQ25 mount.
M22 is nothing less than spectacular. It is ranked in the six finest globulars in the entire Milky Way (from our observation point). Most rank M13 as being better in the Northern Hemisphere, I do not agree. What I like about this globular cluster is that the stars are easy to resolve since most are about 11th magnitude. The total number of stars in this system are believed to number about 500,000.
This 100 million-year-old globular cluster is located in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way and a birthplace for billions of stars. The cluster is approximately 160,000 light-years away in the constellation Dorado. Typical of globular clusters, it is a spherical collection of densely packed stars held together by mutual gravitational attraction. Unlike most globular clusters, however, the stars of NGC 1850 are relatively young. Globular clusters with young stars such as NGC 1850 are not present in our own Milky Way galaxy.
Astrophysicists theorize that when the first generation of stars in NGC 1850 was born, the stars ejected matter like dust and gas into the surrounding cosmos. The density of the newly formed star cluster was so high that this ejected matter could not escape the cluster’s gravitational pull, causing it to stay nearby. The intense gravity of the cluster also pulled in hydrogen and helium gas from its surroundings. These two sources of gas combined to form a second generation of stars, increasing the density and size of this globular cluster.
In 2021, scientists detected the presence of a black hole in NGC 1850. They have also detected many brighter blue stars that burn hotter and die younger than red stars. Also present are around 200 red giants, stars that have run out of hydrogen in their centers and are fusing hydrogen further from their core, causing the outer layers to expand, cool, and glow red. Surrounding the cluster is a pattern of nebulosity, diffuse dust and gas theorized to come from supernova blasts, visible here as the blue veil-like structures.
NGC 1850 is approximately 63,000 times the mass of the Sun, and its core is roughly 20 light-years in diameter. Astronomers used Hubble Space Telescope observations at a wide range of wavelengths to image this large star cluster and learn more about star formation.
Credit: NASA, ESA and P. Goudfrooij (Space Telescope Science Institute); Processing: Gladys Kober (NASA/Catholic University of America)
Hubble studied this star cluster using different filters with to examine particular wavelengths of light. This image includes some near-infrared light along with visible light. For a second image and more info, visit:
www.nasa.gov/image-feature/goddard/2022/hubble-captures-d...
For an older Hubble image of NGC 1850, visit:
hubblesite.org/contents/news-releases/2001/news-2001-25.html
For Hubble’s Star Clusters page, visit: www.nasa.gov/content/discoveries-hubbles-star-clusters
The brightest and most famous globular cluster in the northern hemisphere.
A stack of 60x60s exposures using a QHY22 camera on a TS Imaging Star71 - 71mm f/4.9 Imaging APO telescope. Autoguided using OAG and CLS filter.
All calibration and processing done in PixInsight.
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: Meade 12” LX-90 SCT Telescope, Antares Focal Reducer, ZWO ASI2600MC camera running at 0F, 40 x 60 seconds, Celestron CGX-L pier mounted, ZWO EAF and ASIAir Pro, processed in DSS and PixInsight. Image Date: July 23, 2025. Location: The Dark Side Observatory (W59), Weatherly, PA, USA (Bortle Class 4).
Re-edit of this mosaic using PixInsight 1.8
2-tile mosaic covering the Pipe Nebula and most of "The Kiwi", plus a bit of Sagittarius showing Messier 8 and 20. And as a bonus, Saturn is the bright one bottom centre. :-P
Later in the season I hope to shoot 2 more tiles above, below and to the left of this image, covering a nice big chunk of this amazing region of the sky.
Each tile is a stack of 10 x 180s images shot at 120mm focal length, F4.5 and 640ISO.
Humidity was very high, and for the last few shots I was in thickening fog moving down from the hills ...
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: 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.
NGC 5904
LX200 GPS 8" f10
CCD Sbig ST9
5 imatges de 30 segons (2,5 minuts)
Observatori Astronòmic de l'Institut d'Alcarràs (Alcarràs, Lleida, Catalunya)
M15 (NGC 7078) is a bright globular cluster located in the constellation Pegasus. The age of this cluster is estimated to be 12 billion years, ranking it as one of the oldest known globular clusters.
This image is composed of 32 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 August 6, 2016.
Messier 72 (M72 or NGC 6981) is a globular cluster found in the constellation Aquarius. It is one of the smaller and fainter globular clusters in the Messier list.
Tech Specs: Sky-Watcher Esprit 120mm ED Triplet APO Refractor, Celestron CGEM-DX mount, Canon 6D stock camera, ISO 3200, 15 x 60 second exposures with dark/bias frames, guided using a ZWO ASI290MC and Orion 60mm guide scope. Image date: September 28, 2018. Location: The Dark Side Observatory, Weatherly, PA, USA.
Aberkenfig, South Wales
Lat +51.542 Long -3.593
Skywatcher 254mm Newtonian Reflector, Olympus E410 at prime focus. EQ6 Syntrek Mount.
23 frames used in stacking
14 x 50s at 800 ISO.
9 x 50s at 1600 ISO
Also 10 dark frames.
Imaging session commenced at 23:35 UT 14-04-2020.
Processed with Deep Sky Stacker and final levels adjusted with G.I.M.P.
The final image is slightly cropped but it displays coma towards the edges. This is one drawback of a parabolic f/4.8 Newtonian.
Chandra's unique ability to precisely locate and resolve individual X-ray sources in 12 globular clusters in our Galaxy has given astronomers a crucial clue as to the origin of these sources. Two clusters, known as NGC 6266 (or M62) and NGC 7099 (or M30), are shown here in this 2003 image.
A globular cluster is a spherical collection of hundreds of thousands and even millions of stars buzzing around each other in a gravitationally bound stellar beehive that is about a hundred light years in diameter. The stars in a globular cluster are often only about a tenth of a light year apart. For comparison, the nearest star to the Sun, Proxima Centauri, is 4.2 light years away.
Most of the point-like sources in these images are binary star systems containing a collapsed star, such as a neutron star or a white dwarf star, that is pulling matter off a normal companion star. While direct, head-on collisions between stars are rare even in these crowded circumstances, close encounters occur and can lead to the formation of binary star systems containing a collapsed star.
The images illustrate a general trend observed for globular clusters. Clusters such as M62 where the stars are packed very closely together and the rate of close encounters is high have more X-ray binaries than those such as M30 in which close encounters occur less often. This is strong evidence that the X-ray binaries in globular clusters are formed by close encounters.
Image credit: NASA/CXC/MIT/D.Pooley et al.
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