View allAll Photos Tagged OmegaCentauri
A Globular Cluster in Centaurus
Image exposure: 31 Minutes
Image Size: 2.13 º x 1.41 º
Image date: 2023-03-29
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Image was annotated in PixInsight. See original image for capture and other processing details.
Two rather prominent galaxies can be seen in this image. PGC47003 to the right of Omega Centauri and PGC47340 to the lower left. Their distance from us is 140 Mly and 150 Mly respectively. There are several smaller PGC objects that have been annotated in the frame.
Notice that the galaxies in this image have a reddish cast. This is likely the result of the scene's low galactic lattitude (about 15 degrees from the center of the galactic plane), which means that their light has traveled through larger cross section of Milky Way dust to reach us than it would have if the objects were directly above or below the galactic plane.
We see more red light from these normally white objects, because light at the red end of the visible spectrum penetrates the dust more readily that the blue light. This work in much the same way that sunrises and sunsets are red due to light travelling through a thicker cross section of the Earth's atmosphere than if the Sun were closer to the zenith.
I spent my holidays this year with my son's camera on La Reunion.
This image was taken from a RAW, from which 10 TIFF were generated in LR. The TIFF files were stacked with Sequator. The result again slightly reworked in LR.
ZWO ASI6200MM-Pro/EFW 2" x 7 (LRGB)
Tele Vue NP101is
Losmandy G11
Object was about 17 degrees above the horizon when captured at approximately 0800 UTC.
Captured in NINA (1 hour total integration)
L: 95 x 20s
RGB: 30 x 20s
Processed in PixInsight with WBPP, DBE, LinearFit, SPCC, BlurXTerminator, and NoiseXTerminator.
An apparent size comparison between the Moon and globular cluster Omega Centauri. Of course, Omega Centauri is about 15,790 light years away and the Moon is only about 400,000 kms or 1.3 light seconds away. Omega Centauri is actually about 172 light years across and the Moon is only 3,474 kms or 0.012 light seconds across.
Both photos were taken with the same telescope in the Arkaroola Imaging Observatory and cropped the same amount vertically, but obviously with different exposures: 1.3 milliseconds for the Moon and 50 seconds for Omega Centauri.
Sculpture in steel with mirrors called "Omega Centauri 3.9", made in 2018 by Tomás Saraceno (b. 1973) from Argentine. Omega Centauri is the name of the biggest star cluster in the Milky Way visible to the naked eye. The figure 3.9 denotes how much light the astronomical object emits from the Earth’s perspective.
Saraceno often introduce fabulous architectural utopias and questions the lifestyle of modern man. He is inspired by nature’s geometric shapes such as cobwebs, soap bubbles, and cloud formations. He is originally trained as an architect, and his biospheres can be viewed as models for alternative types of social spaces and habitats for people. Taking a metaphorical and poetic approach to serious issues such as Earth´s overpopulation, environment, and migration, Saraceno wishes to point to new potential relationships between culture and nature.
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomás_Saraceno
A part of the Open-air Art exhibition at Ordrupgaard Art Museum.
ordrupgaard.dk/en/ (website also in English)
No doubt about it – the largest, most massive and most glorious Milky Way globular cluster in the entire sky is Omega Centauri!
I’ve imaged this stunning object several times before but this is the first time using the ZWO ASI071 camera.
Object Details:
Designation: Caldwell 80, NGC 5139.
Constellation: Centaurus.
Visual magnitude: +3.7
Apparent size: 55′
Diameter: 271 light years.
Distance: 17,000 light years.
Altitude: 67° above SE horizon.
Image:
Exposure: 14.75 min. (10 frames @ 88.5 sec).
Gain: 152.
Date: 2019-06-22.
This object is a globular cluster that was first identified as non-stellar by Edmond Halley in 1677. It is 17,000 light-years from Earth in the constellation Centaurus. This is the largest globular cluster in the Milky Way Galaxy's halo with a diameter of about 150 light-years, and it is comprised of approximately 10 million stars that orbit a common center of gravity. The cluster is 12 billion years old and contans 4 million times the sun's mass. This is a very dense cluster with individual stars packed very closely to one another. The average distance between two stars is about 0.1 light year. This compares to our Sun's nearest stellar neighbor, which is 4 light years away.
Omega Centauri's appears in Earth's sky as a 3.9 magnitude object that is 36 arcminutes in diameter. This means that it can be seen with the unaided eye appearing as a fuzzy star-like object, and with a small telescope appearing about the same size as the full moon. As this is a southern hemisphere constellation, it is best observed from southern locations like the Florida Keys or even further south.
The small galaxies that can be seen within the frame have a reddish appearance that is due to the object being situatued close to the plane of the Milky Way Galaxy. This is because higher concentrations of dust and gas in this direction more easily pass red light while scattering other colors of the spectrum.
Observing Report for February 17/18, 2023
Trip Report for Winter Star Party, February 13 - 19, 2023, Scout Key, Florida.
EQUIPMENT
ZWO ASI6200MM-Pro/EFW 2" x 7 (LRGB)
Tele Vue NP101is/Large Field Corrector (4", f/5.4)
Losmandy G11
Autoguiding with PHD2
CAPTURE
Object was about 17 degrees above the horizon when captured at approximately 0300 local time.
Captured in NINA (1 hour total integration)
L: 95 x 20s
RGB: 30 each filter x 20s
PROCESSING
PixInsight with WBPP, DBE, LinearFit, SPCC, BlurXTerminator, NoiseXTerminator, and HDRMT.
I recently assisted my good friend, GMO volunteer and astro-photographer Kim Quick in post processing his data on Omega Centauri, the largest and most massive Globular Cluster in our Milky Way in the constellation Centaurus.
I still remember viewing this "one of the most beautiful objects in the night sky" as a child growing up in Australia.
Kim captured this data in LRGB over 3 nights in May 2020 using iTelescope's T32 at Siding Springs, NSW Australia.
Total Integration 4 hours 56 minutes
View in High Resolution on Astrobin
Almost 3 hours on this photo of the most incredible globular cluster in the Milky Way (Hey M13, please don't cry).
In addition to the cluster and some mini-galaxies (Mini in apparent size, not absolute. 😅), I believe I managed to capture Galactic Cirrus (IFN, Integrated Flux Nebula), on the bottom left! Super tenuous, but I think it's there.
So, do you prefer Omega Centauri or the Hercules Cluster?
EXIF:
169x60s, ISO 1600
149 flats, 150 bias, 50 darks
CEM25P, Long Perng 66mm f6, Optolong L-PRO, modified Canon T6i.
Bortle 6
Omega Centauri (NGC 5139) is a globular cluster in the constellation Centaurus.
Located at a distance of 15,800 light-years, it is the largest globular cluster in the Milky Way at a diameter of roughly 150 light-years.
It is estimated to contain approximately 10 million stars, totalling the equivalent of 4 million solar masses.
This photo was imaged using a Celestron C8 and a QHY268M at the native 2032mm focal length.
This very bright object was exposed for only 78 minutes, 14x180sec subs through a UV & IR Cut filter and 12 x 60s subs through each of the red, green and blue filters.
New processed photo - Part of the southern Milky Way with the Southern Cross, the pointer stars (Alpha & Beta Centauri), Southern Pleiades and the Carina Nebula
[Canon EOS 1000Da, Canon EF 28 mm f/2.8 bei f/3.5, ISO-800, 15 x 7 Min., Cokin P820, on Astrotrac, APP & Photoshop CC - Astrofarm Tivoli, Namibia, Mai 2014]
Omega Centauri, NGC5139.
The biggest & brightest of all the Globular Clusters, a real treat in the eyepiece when visual observing and imaged here using the Seestar S50.
OC doesn't disappoint if you like stars, and plenty of them!
Seestar S50, 30min 10" subs.
Daniel Verschatse Observatory
Hacienda los Andes, Chile
Telescopio refractor Astro-Physics 105 mm F6 "Traveler"
Montura equatorial Astro-Physics Mach1 GTO
Cámara principal QHY163 C CMOS
Cámara guiado QHY5-II
Sistema de enfoque Robofocus
Captura de datos/automatización The SkyX professional edition/ Max Pilot
25 tomas de 120s. Tiempo total de integración 50m.
Procesado con Pixinsight y Gimp (GNU Linux)
Localización: Hacienda los Andes, Rio Hurtado, Chile
Astrometry.net job 4627359
Center (RA, hms):13h 26m 47.195s
Center (Dec, dms):-47° 28' 46.405"
Size:1.52 x 1.15 deg
Radius:0.952 deg
Pixel scale:1.18 arcsec/pixel
Orientation:Up is 90.3 degrees E of N
Omega Centauri, or NGC 5139, largest star cluster in the sky!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Add a favorite of this unusual filtered sun shot by exceptional photographer Jeanette Muranyi:
NGC 5139 is a globular cluster in the constellation of Centaurus.
38x300s
QHY8L
Sky-Watcher Equinox 80 ED
Sky-Watcher NEQ6-Pro
Globular Cluster
Caldwell 80, NGC5139
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Image exposure: 45 minutes
Image Size: 2.11º x 1.4º
Image date: 2024-04-06
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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
Redcat51
AZ-EQ5
ZWO ASI533MC + Optolong L-Pro
53x120"
No calibration frames
Nebulosity4
Guiding = ZWO ASI120MC-S + William Optics UniGuide 32mm + PHD2
PixInsight
Photoshop CC
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
NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day ( APOD ) for the 11th of July 2017.
Link: apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap170711.htm
( Image credit for page: apod.nasa.gov and Mike O'Day )
Full size image ( warning quite large - 4620 x 3720 ):
Travelers to the southern hemisphere should make an effort to see the Southern Cross (Crux), an asterism used by navigators in the absence of a south pole star. As a circumpolar constellation, Crux is usually above the horizon all night long. See embedded notes for identifications.
Near it is Alpha Centauri, a triple star system whose minor member Proxima Centauri is the closest star to the sun (4.246 light-years).
Not having a tripod, I balanced my camera on an object and used the hat trick (cover lens with a hat when opening the shutter, then remove it quickly).
As someone who has spent his entire life in São Paulo and its Bortle 8/9 sky; this weekend I had the opportunity to visit Brotas and imagine what it was like to see a Bortle 4 sky? It's not even halfway to a perfect sky yet, but what a beautiful thing to be able to observe "our home", the Milky Way.
Xiaomi Redmi 11S ISO5000 25s f/1,89 5,89mm EV0.
Edited with MS Picture Manager.
This frame was taken with clear filter without dual narrow band filter. Focus got off in longer exposure frames.
Equipment: Sigma 35mmF1.4 DG HSM Art, IDAS Clear Filter, and EOS R6-SP5, modified by Seo San on ZWO AM5 Equatorial Mount, autoguided with Fujinon 1:2.8/75mm C-Mount Lens, Pentax x2 Extender, ZWO ASI 120MM-mini, and PHD2 Guiding
Exposure: 4 times x 60 seconds, 5 x 240 sec, and 12 times x 600 seconds at ISO 1,600 and f/3.2
site: 2,430m above sea level at lat. 24 38 55 South and long. 70 16 52 West near Cerro Armazones Chile
SQML was 21.55 at the night. Ambient temperature was around 6 degrees Celsius or 43 degrees Fahrenheit.
When things don't look very good around us, it is better to look at the beauty of a starry sky
Den Sternenhimmel genießen
Image of the beautiful Southern Sky that I took a few years ago, stacked and post-processed with an evaluation version of PixInsight and enhanced with Photoshop.
I added some annotations for the main sky objects to facilitate their identification
72 lights, 20 darks, 5sec each, ISO 3200
Sony A7iii, Sigma lens f1.4/20mm
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 panorama takes in a roughly 180° sweep of the Milky Way:
— from Sagittarius, Scorpius and the Galactic Centre at left,
— to Orion, Gemini and near the galactic anti-centre at right.
At far left we are looking toward the centre of our galaxy; at far right we are looking toward its outer edge, from our location in one of the outer spiral arms of the Milky Way, in a spur off the Cygnus Arm. At centre we are looking into the adjacent Carina and Centaurus arms.
The panorama frames the full extent of southernmost reaches of the Milky Way that can be seen only from, or best from, southern latitudes, in the tropics or the southern hemisphere.
The southern extent of the Milky Way includes the constellations of (from L to R) Lupus, Centaurus, Crux, Carina, Vela and Puppis across the central area of the panorama, a region rich in red emission nebulas and dark lanes of interstellar dust. The largest nebula is the vast pink Gum Nebula in Vela and Puppis near centre, a huge bubble of glowing hydrogen similar to the arc of Barnard's Loop around Orion at right.
But the Milky Way is dotted with many other bright emission nebulas, such as (from L to R): the Lagoon, Cat's Paw (both at far left), the Running Chicken, Eta Carinae (both near centre), the Seagull, the Rosette (both at far right), and the Angel Fish in the head of Orion. At top left are the stars of the head of Scorpius and the colourful nebulas around Antares and Rho Ophiuchi.
The dark dust lanes at left make up the aboriginal Dark Emu constellation, with her head being the Coal Sack near the Southern Cross left of centre, and her neck being the curving lane of dust that splits the Milky Way in Centaurus at left. At far left are the angled lanes that make up the Dark Horse in the Milky Way.
Of note are the various colours of the Milky Way, varying from blue (at right) to, to redder (at centre), to yellow (at left), the latter from absorption of short wavelengths by the greater amount of dust toward the centre of the galaxy, and also from the presence of more older, yellow Population II stars toward the galactic core.
The two brightest stars in the panorama are also the two brightest stars in the night sky: Canopus at the bottom edge and Sirius at right. Procyon and the pair of Castor and Pollux are at upper right.
The Southern Cross and the Pointer stars of Alpha and Beta Centauri are left of centre, while the False Cross stars are just below centre to the left of the Gum Nebula. The white "star" above the Southern Cross and Pointers is the large globular cluster Omega Centauri. The blue stars at left above the Milky Way belong to the Scorpius-Centaurus OB Association of young, hot stars.
Technical:
This is a panorama of 11 segments, each a stack of 8 to 12 exposures, of 2 or 3 minutes each, with the Canon RF28-70mm lens at f/2.2 or f/2.8 (I varied the settings during the shoot) and at 35mm focal length, and with the camera turned in portrait orientation across the Milky Way. I used the red-sensitive Canon Ra camera at ISO 800. The lens had an URTH 95mm Night broadband light pollution reduction filter to help contrast. A ballhead with a rotation axis above the ball facilitated moving the camera from segment to segment along the Milky Way with a single motion, keeping the galactic equator centered.
I shot the segments on one long night in March 2024, shooting from the Warrumbungles Mountain Motel near Coonabarabran, NSW, Australia, at the OzSky star party. Pre-dawn clouds rolling in, plus dawn itself, and an annoying nearby tree prevented more exposures up the Milky Way to the north at left, to frame more of the galactic centre area. Ditto on sky glow at right in the early evening preventing more exposures north of (below in the Oz sky) Orion into Auriga, a region quite low from this latitude of 32° South. In fact, the sky glow in the upper right corner is likely Zodiacal Light. Extending the panorama requires exposures at another time and/or site and latitude.
Segments were processed initially in Adobe Camera Raw, stacked and aligned in Photoshop, and then stitched into the panorama with PTGui, which did a better job at blending segments than Photoshop's Photomerge command. Applications of luminosity-masked Curves, the Photokemi Nebula Filter action, and the Nik Collection Color EFX Detail Extractor filter all helped bring out the nebulas. I also applied a mild Soft Focus filter to add a touch of glow for artistic effect! I did not use a starglow diffusion filter on the lens, nor any narrowband filter such as an H-Alpha filter.
The original is 21,100 by 6,500 pixels.
NGC 5139 Omega Centauri is a globular star cluster. Nikon D810 A, APO 107/700 @500mm. Kiripotib astropark
© Julian Köpke
The wonders of the southern hemisphere sky rising over the Tasman Sea at Cape Conran, on the Gippsland Coast of Victoria. Australia, on March 31, 2017.
The head and neck of the Dark Emu is rising from the ocean. At top is the Carina Nebula area, below is Crux, the Southern Cross, and below it are the twin Pointer Stars of Alpha and Beta Centauri. At top right is the Large Magellanic Cloud, and below it is the Small Magellanic Cloud. Left (north) of the Crux and Pointers is the fuzzy spot of Omega Centauri globular cluster. At far right is the star Achernar. At centre is the area of the South Celestial Pole.
The dim red glow in the sky due south at centre might be aurora australis but is likely airglow.
This is a stack of 4 x 40-second exposures, untracked, for the ground, mean combined to smooth noise, and one 40-second exposure for the sky, all at f/2.5 with the 14mm Rokinon lens and Canon 6D at ISO 3200.
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
Data acquired last year (2022). I did a new processing using PixInsight. The original image can be seen in my gallery.
It's a montage made out of 4 pictures, all of them afocal, Lumia 640 ISO800 4s f/2,2 3mm EV0.
Edited with MS Picture Manager, Photofiltre and MS Paint.
I made this montage in order to record the region towards Milky nucleus, through all Centaurus-Scorpius constellations over the bright and polluted skies of Sao Paulo.
equipmnent: Sigma 40mmF1.4 DG HSM Art and Canon EOS 6D-sp4, modified by Seo-san on Takahashi EM-200FG-Temma 2Z-BL, autoguided with Fujinon 1:2.8/75mm C-Mount Lens, Pentax x2 Extender, Starlight Xpress Lodestar Autoguider, and PHD2 Guiding
exposure: 12 times x 15 minutes, 5 x 4 min, 5 x 1 min, and 5x 15 seconds at ISO 1,600 and f/4.0
site: 2,430m above sea level at lat. 24 39 52 South and long. 70 16 11 West near Cerro Armazones Chile
One of my fist short exposure learning/test Astro-images (photographed close to the city).
A deep sky wide field astro-photo of Omega Centauri (NGC 5139), a globular cluster in the constellation of Centaurus. Located at a distance of 15,800 light-years, it is the largest globular cluster in the Milky Way Galaxy (at a diameter of roughly 150 light-years).
To give an indication of distance, light travels about 10 trillion kilometers or 6 trillion miles in a year. The Omega Centauri globular cluster is estimated to contain approximately 10 million stars and a total mass equivalent to 4 million solar masses (1 solar mass is equal to the mass of the Sun, weighing in at about 2 Nonillion kilograms).
Globular Clusters were described by Carl Sagan like a "swarm of bees". In this case it is 10 Million suns in a dense cluster.
Photographed rather close to the "light polluted" suburbs of the West Rand and North Rand of Johannesburg (Gauteng Province, South Africa). Light Pollution Map.
Astrometry info:
RA, Dec center: 201.667367509, -47.469712706 degrees
Orientation: 1.04623985658 deg E of N
Pixel scale: 6.1860599014 arcsec/pixel
Field contains: NGC 5139
nova.astrometry.net/user_images/774840#annotated
Gear:
GSO 6" f/4 Imaging Newtonian Telescope (Astrograph).
Celestron Advanced VX Equatorial Mount.
Orion UltraBlock Narrowband Light Pollution Filter.
Canon 60Da DSLR (sensitive to IR light at 656.28 nm).
Processed in PixInsight.
Polar Aligned, but Unguided.
Stacked 10 sec. exposures (Lights/Subs).
Calibration Frames: Darks and Bias frames (no Flats).
Martin
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NGC 5139 - NGC Omega Centauri, is almost 6 hours of integration in LRGB with Slooh's Chile Two Telescope. Omega Centauri (also known as C 80) is commonly classified as a globular cluster, the brightest observable from Earth. It is observed in the constellation of Centaurus. It is probably what remains of a dwarf galaxy absorbed by our Milky Way; In fact, a black hole was found inside. Omega Centauri can be observed without difficulty on clear nights even with the naked eye; However, its declination of -47° means that it is observable only from the fortieth parallel north, and that it is visible without difficulty only from the Tropic of Cancer. Some observatories have exceptionally seen it through a telescope and photographed it from the latitude of 42° north.
It looks like a third-magnitude star, apparently a bit blurry, northeast of the bright constellation of the Southern Cross; with binoculars or an amateur telescope, on the other hand, it appears as a large nebulous spot, spread over half a degree in diameter and brighter in the center. A powerful telescope is required for its full resolution.
Its declination is strongly austral, so this object is not observable from many of the inhabited regions of the northern hemisphere, such as almost all of Europe and most of North America; from some inhabited regions of the southern hemisphere, on the contrary, it is circumpolar. The best time for observing it in the evening sky is between February and August.
Omega Centauri (ω Cen or NGC 5139) is a globular cluster in the constellation of Centaurus that was first identified as a non-stellar object by Edmond Halley in 1677. Located at a distance of 15,800 light-years (4,850 pc), it is the largest globular cluster in the Milky Way at a diameter of roughly 150 light-years.
This data was shot by Pete Williamson with the Faulkes Telescope Project, using the 2 metre Ritchie-Chretien telescope. I was given access to a bunch of raw data after attending a remote imaging workshop with Pete. The data was shot by him, but stacked and fully processed by me.
5 x 20 second exposures of red, green and blue. Each channel was stacked using Deep Sky Stacker. Each stacked image was stretched, then once I'd processed all 3, I brought them together in a single RGB image then processed the blended image further. Processed in Photoshop CS2, Lightroom and Fast Stone Image Viewer
A group of dead stars known as 'spider pulsars' are obliterating companion stars within their reach. Data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory of the globular cluster Omega Centauri is helping astronomers understand how these spider pulsars prey on their stellar companions.
A pulsar is the spinning dense core that remains after a massive star collapses into itself to form a neutron star. Rapidly rotating neutron stars can produce beams of radiation. Like a rotating lighthouse beam, the radiation can be observed as a powerful, pulsing source of radiation, or pulsar. Some pulsars spin around dozens to hundreds of times per second, and these are known as millisecond pulsars.
Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO; Optical: NASA/ESA/STScI/AURA; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/N. Wolk
#NASAMarshall #NASA #astrophysics #NASAChandra #NASA #blackhole #pulsar #IXPE #NASAHubble #NASASpitzer
Read more about the Chandra X-ray Observatory
Read more about NASA's Hubble Space Telescope
Read more about NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope
NGC 5139 / ω Centauri. Apilado de 60x45 segs (45min). f:400mm @ F/5.7, ISO 800. Canon 1000D + Celestron Travel Scope 70 (70/400mm), montura CG-4. 24-05-2019
One of the most interesting parts of the Milky Way rising above the Ocean.
The very bright Eta Carina nebula, visible to the naked eye shines at the top, followed by the small but bright lambda centauri nebula. Both are pink/red in color.
Then next to the southern cross you can find the dark nebula known as the coalsack. A gigantic area of dust that occults the stars in the Mliky Way plane.
Just above the ocean the brightest globular cluster in the sky: Omega Centauri is rising. You will see it in the photo and with your naked eye as a diffuse star bigger than the normal stars. Omega has recently been upgraded to dwarf galaxy status.
An international team of astronomers has used more than 500 images from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope spanning two decades to detect seven fast-moving stars in the innermost region of Omega Centauri, the largest and brightest globular cluster in the sky. These stars provide compelling new evidence for the presence of an intermediate-mass black hole.
Omega Centauri is visible from Earth with the naked eye and is one of the favourite celestial objects for stargazers in the southern hemisphere. Although the cluster is 17 000 light-years away, lying just above the plane of the Milky Way, it appears almost as large as the full Moon when seen from a dark rural area. The exact classification of Omega Centauri has evolved through time, as our ability to study it has improved. It was first listed in Ptolemy's catalogue nearly two thousand years ago as a single star. Edmond Halley reported it as a nebula in 1677, and in the 1830s the English astronomer John Herschel was the first to recognise it as a globular cluster. Omega Centauri consists of roughly 10 million stars that are gravitationally bound.
This image shows the central region of the Omega Centauri globular cluster, where the IMBH candidate was found.
[Image Description: The central region of a globular cluster is shown, appearing as a highly dense and numerous collection of shining stars. Some stars show blue and orange glowing features around them.]
Credits: ESA/Hubble & NASA, M. Häberle; CC BY 4.0
This frame was taken with dual narrow band filter, IDAS NB12, but the most importance is not with those hydrogen-alpha emissions.
There exist many striae of dark or hydrogen-alpha clouds flowing in the same oblique direction, from east northeast to west southwest or vice versa against the galactic plane. Who know the reason or mechanism of the large structure. North is up, and east is to the left.
Equipment: Sigma 35mmF1.4 DG HSM Art, IDAS NB12 Dual Narrow Band Filter, and EOS R6-SP5, modified by Seo San on ZWO AM5 Equatorial Mount, autoguided with Fujinon 1:2.8/75mm C-Mount Lens, Pentax x2 Extender, ZWO ASI 120MM-mini, and PHD2 Guiding
Exposure: 16 times x 60 seconds, 16 x 240 sec, and 19 times x 900 - 1,800 seconds at ISO 6,400 and f/3.2
Total exposure time was 10 hours. Data were acquired during four consecutive nights. I tried imaging through five consecutive nights, but the data acquired at first night were discarded due to rotation of ball mount a bit after the night. The frames were different in direction from others gathered at the other four nights. The rotation made it difficult for me to register them together.
The rotation was recorded in the frame containing bright meteor: www.flickr.com/photos/hiroc/53748460722
site: 2,430m above sea level at lat. 24 38 55 South and long. 70 16 52 West near Cerro Armazones Chile
SQML was 21.55 at the night. Ambient temperature was around 6 degrees Celsius or 43 degrees Fahrenheit.
Omega Centauri - ghost of a galaxy from Terlingua, a Texas ghost town. Sony NEX-5N with vintage Vivitar 135mm f 2.8 telephoto lens and Vixen Polarie mount. 24 images exposed for 15 sec each at ISO 6400 processed in PixInsight, Topaz DeNoise, and Photoshop. Reworked in May 2021 from my original data with better skill and tools.
A globular cluster in the constellation of Centaurus, considered the largest globular cluster in the Milky Way, it is so different from other globular clusters that it is theorized that it may have been a dwarf galaxy that was absorbed by the Milky Way. It is 15,800 lights years distance from Earth. It is visible with the naked eye in the southern hemisphere as big as the full Moon. It contains several million stars, the stars in the core are so crowded about a 0.1 light year apart from each other. A study in 2008 shows evidence that there is a Black Hole in its core.
Image Profile:
Location: Siding Springs, Australia
Type: LRGB
Frames: LRGB 7x300; 6x120; 6x120; 6x180
Imaging times: from 20140313
Hardware:
-Main scope: Planetwave 20”
-CCD: FLI PL6303E with FW and Astrodon filters.
-Mount: Planetwave Ascension 200HR
Imaging Applications:
-iTelescope
Processing Applications:
-CCD Stack
-Photoshop cs3
Terlingua Texas ghost town is the perfect spot to image Omega Centauri, a globular cluster believed to be the remains of another galaxy consumed by the Milky Way long ago. I found a spot down in the gully behind our cabin for this POV. Sony NEX-5N with vintage Vivitar 135mm lens on a Vixen Polarie tracking mount. Exposed March 14, 2016 at ISO 3200 for 30 sec at f 5.6 with 59 images stacked. Foreground image illuminated by open cabin door exposed for 15 sec at ISO 3200. Stacking in Nebulosity. HDR composite in Photoshop.