View allAll Photos Tagged OmegaCentauri
It's a montage made out of 5 pictures, all of them afocal, Xiaomi Redmi 7A ISO100 16s f/2,2 3,8mm EV0.
Edited with MS Picture Manager, Photofiltre and MS Paint.
I made this montage in order to record our Milky Way galaxy across the skies covering from Ophiucus to Carina constellations on the high polluted skies of São Paulo. It's possible to see inumerous bright star clusters and stars. This picture cover constellations such as Scorpius (The Scorpion), Norma (The Set Square), Corona Australis (The Southern Crown), Telescopium (The Telescope), Circinus (The Compass), Ara (The Altar), Musca (The Fly), Crux (The Southern Cross) and Lupus (The Wolf) constellations. It's possible to se parts of the Sagittarius (The Archer), Serpens Caput (The Sepers' Head), Serpens Cauda (The Serpens' Tail), Ophiucus (The Serpent Bearer), Centaurus (The Centaur), Carina (The Keel), Volans (The Flying Fish), Pavo (The Peacock) and Pictor (The Painter) constellations and the planets Mars and Jupiter as well
Also, it's the first time I could register "kind of" the Large Magellanic Cloud (the largest neighbor of our galaxy).
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.
[Image Description: A globular cluster, appearing as a highly dense and numerous collection of shining stars. Some appear a bit larger and brighter than others, with the majority of stars appearing blue and orange. They are scattered mostly uniformly, but in the centre they crowd together more and more densely, and merge into a stronger glow at the cluster’s core.]
Credits: ESA/Hubble & NASA, M. Häberle; CC BY 4.0
This frame was a mixture of frames taken with and without dual narrow band filter. Density 50% of frame taken with clear filter was on frame taken with dual narrow band filter.
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 or 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: 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 with NB12 and 4 times x 60 seconds, 5 x 240 seconds, and 12 x 600 seconds at ISO 1.600 and f/3.2 with Clear Filter
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 (ω Cen), NGC 5139 or C80, is a globular cluster in the constellation of Centaurus. At a distance of about 15,800 light-years (9 460 730 472 580 km x 15800 years) from Earth, Omega Centauri is one of the few globular clusters visible to the naked eye. 24min total exposure, ISO 640, F6.3, Darks subtracted and Flats used but no filters. Taken with Canon 70D through 10 inch Meade LX200GPS telescope. 1May2014 from my famous little backyard. Information on Omega Centauri available here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NGC5139
Telescope:
TS130 f5.7
Mount:
Avalon Linear
Main camera:
Atik 460EX mono
Filters: Baader RGB
Autoguide:
TS60 + ASI120 Mono
R: 3x120" bin 1x1
G: 3x120" bin 1x1
B: 3x120" bin 1x1
Processed with Pixinsight and Photoshop
Captured from El Roque de los Muchachos Observatory
It's a montage made out of 3 pictures, all of them afocal, Xiaomi Redmi 7A ISO100 16s f/2,2 3,8mm EV0.
Edited with MS Picture Manager, Photofiltre and MS Paint.
I made this montage in order to record the rich star field (and star cluster) region of the ancient Argo Navis constellation (nowadays Vela (The Sail), Carina (The Keel) and Puppis (The Poop Deck). It's also possible to see Crux (The Southern Cross), Volans (The Flying Fish), Reticulum (The Reticle), Pictor (The Painter's Easel), Dorado (The Dolphinfish) constellations and part of Centaurus (The Centaur) constellaton.
What looks like a reddish big star above the ocean is actually Omega Centauri [see large] the biggest globular cluster in the sky. It contains several millions of stars and is visible to the naked eye.
Above the frame the constellation of Crux, the Southern cross, is visible with the dark coalsack nebula next to it. You can see that Gamma Crux is a red star.
The Jewell Box Cluster is visible as a blob below Beta Crux (Mimosa). The bright star on the right is Beta Centauri (Hadar).
The stars on the left of Crux belong to the small constellation of Circinus.
Omega Centauri is at the focal point of another edition of Deep Space LIVE with astrophotographer Dietmar Hager at at the Ars Electronica Center’s Deep Space 8K.
credit: Ars Electronica / Robert Bauernhansl
A best of Ars Electronica photos can be found here.
Ars Electronica Center Linz
Ars-Electronica-Straße 1
4040 Linz
Austria
This is a wide field shot of the region of sky around Centaurus. The great globular cluster Omega Centauri dominates the scene. To the right is the Centaurus A, a large elliptical galaxy only about 10-16 million light years away. It is the 5th brightest galaxy in the sky. At the bottom left on the image is the galaxy with the designation of NGC 4945. A barred spiral galaxy it is approx 12 million light years from us. These are not the only galaxies in this image, at 100% you will notice many faint fuzzies dotted throughout it.
This image is made up of 36 x 3 minute exposures adding up to almost 2 hours of exposure time. Taken with the Canon 6D and 70-200mm f4L IS lens at f5.6 ISO3200. Captured at Katoomba Airfield on 20/06/2015. Temp was approx 2 degree Celsius.
Follow me on Youtube www.youtube.com/user/JasonAnthonyDJ/
ESA's star-surveying Gaia mission has released a treasure trove of new data as part of its ‘focused product release’. As part of this data release Gaia explored Omega Centauri, the largest globular cluster that can be seen from Earth and a great example of a ‘typical’ cluster.
The team has revealed 526 587 stars that Gaia had not seen before, detecting stars that lie too close together to be measured in the telescope’s regular pipeline and those in the cluster core that are up to 15 times fainter than previously seen. The new data reveal 10 times more stars in Omega Centauri; this new knowledge will enable researchers to study the cluster’s structure, how the constituent stars are distributed, how they’re moving, and more.
This image is from Gaia’s Data Release 3 in 2022. It is contrasted in a new slider with an image from today’s data release, to highlight just how many new sources have been imaged in the cluster’s centre. Only faint stars within Omega Centauri are plotted here.
Alt-text: This image shows a star cluster, which appears as a collection of bright stars against a dark background. The roughly circular cluster appears like a doughnut with an empty centre.
Acknowledgments: Michele Trabucchi, Nami Mowlavi and Thomas Lebzelter
Credits: ESA/Gaia/DPAC, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO
I tried StarNet++ v.2.0 GUI version on windows 10 on Lenovo Legion 570i with Core i7 12700H and RTX3050Ti. Processing finished about 5 minutes with Finer tiles box checked. Oxygen III emission areas got clearer. Oxygen III emissions are at 496nm and 501nm in wavelength, and they show a bit bluish green color. All in all, this frame presented unusual view of the area around Coalsack Nebula.
Here is the original: www.flickr.com/photos/hiroc/53754127808
Here is a frame taken without dual narrow band filter:
www.flickr.com/photos/hiroc/53757365074/
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
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.
Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 captured this image in ultraviolet and visible light showing 100,000 stars in the core of Caldwell 80 (Omega Centauri) soon after the camera was installed in 2009. The stars’ colors give us information about them. Bright blue stars are old, hot stars that are fusing helium in their cores. Bright red stars are cool giants that are heading into old age. Dimmer red stars are cool dwarfs destined to live for a long time. White stars are typically middle-aged, average stars.
Credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble SM4 ERO Team
For Hubble's Caldwell catalog website and information on how to find these objects in the night sky, visit:
"Lord, you can take me now, I've seen it all." (Dan Dierdorf, TV commentator, 19941017).
This was the first long exposure star trail photograph that I took using a recently acquired Zeiss (Hasselblad) 30mm fisheye lens. The lens that I used was manufactured in 1996 but it was in perfect condition. I acquired this lens to serve as a wide-angle lens for my Hasselblad 501CM camera.
The geometry of the scenes that are photographed with a fisheye glens is unusual - I think of it as being midway between the geometry obtained using a conventional rectilinear lens and the geometry of a 360 degree lens. It is quite disarming the way that it captures so much of the horizon - and this is the case even when using the CFV-50c digital back where the recorded photograph is a cropped portion of the image circle. (** I shall have to take some photographs using a film that includes a larger portion of the image circle, just to see the full fisheye geometry of this lens!).
When considering the use of a fisheye lens, it must also be remembered that a fisheye lens geometry is actually quite appropriate for astrophotography as the visible hemisphere is best mapped as a curved space, not a rectilinear space.
As for the photograph itself ... When looking at the LCD screen at the time of capture, it had a pleasing composition, and the light trails, though short, curved nicely around the South Celestial Pole.
Several days later, when I had organized some time to process the image, I sat back to evaluate my feelings about it and ...
... I couldn't be more pleased.
The maximum exposure length for my Hasselblad CFV-50c Digital Back is just over 34 minutes (34:08), which is barely sufficient for capturing star trails. What this exposure length does allow, however, is for various "ghost" features of a short exposure to be drawn out but to remain recognizable. The curve of the star clouds that define the Milky Way are evident, as is a smudge near the right hand edge of the image, just above the building facade, that relates to the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). Within the confines of the Milky Way, close to the middle of the image, is a dark region that is the expression of the Coalsack Dark Nebula. The final feature that I shall mention is the dramatically elevated exposure in the lower left corner of the image. This is a product of the street lights along Bowen Drive and beyond that, to the "lavish" (extravagant, excessive) street/building lights in Kingston.
I would imagine that an exposure time of 16 minutes or so might result in an even "balanced" blend of star trails and point star features.
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This is one of a pair of photographs that I took of the stars around the South Celestial Pole on this morning. The web links (URL's) for the pair are given below. One was a "point star" photograph with an 8 second exposure, whilst this image was a "star trail" photograph with a 34 minute 8 second exposure.
The post-processing applied to this star trail photograph was largely based on Lightroom preset 20170206-108. This preset captured the sequence of processes applied to the complementary point star image.
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URL's for the pair of point star and star trail photographs ...
Point star image on Flickr ...
www.flickr.com/photos/momentsforzen/32671217101/
Star trail image on Flickr ...
www.flickr.com/photos/momentsforzen/32788031332/
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[ Location - Barton, Australian Capital Territory, Australia ]
Photography notes ...
The photograph was taken using the following hardware configuration ...
(Year of manufacture indicated in braces where known.)
- Hasselblad 501CM Body (Chrome) - S/N 10SH26953 (2002).
- Hasselblad CFV-50c Digital Back for Hasselblad V mount camera (2016).
- Hasselblad Focusing Screen for the CFV-50c digital back, with focusing prism and crop markings.
- Hasselblad 45 Degree Viewfinder PME-45 42297 (2001).
- Hasselblad Carl Zeiss fisheye lens - F-Distagon 3.5/30 CF T* (1996).
- Really Right Stuff (RRS) TFC-14 Series 1 Carbon Fiber Tripod - MFR # 13996.
- Really Right Stuff (RRS) BH-30 Ball Head with Mini Screw-Knob Clamp - MFR # BH-30 PRO.
- Hasselblad HATQCH (3043326) Tripod Quick Coupling.
- Arca-Swiss ARUCP38 Universal Camera Plate 3/8".
- Nikon AR-3 Shutter Release Cable.
- Artisan & Artist ACAM-302 Silk Cord for Hassleblad Cameras (Black).
I acquired this photograph (8272 x 6200 pixels) with an ISO of 100, exposure time of 34:08 seconds (20170205 @ 02:14:38 to 02:48:46), and aperture of f/11.0
Post-processing ...
Finder - Removed the CF card from the camera digital back and placed it in a Lexar 25-in-1 USB card reader. Then used Finder on my MacBook Air to download the raw image file (3FR extension) from the card.
Lightroom - Imported the 3FR image.
Lightroom - Used the Map module to add the location details to the EXIF header.
Lightroom - Applied Lightroom preset 20170206-108.
Lightroom - Used the Spot Removal tool to attenuate a number of the characteristic small, dark circular artifacts that are related to dust spots on the digital sensor.
Lightroom - Decreased the saturation and increased the exposure for the blue fraction of the image (see HSL panel).
Lightroom - Added a small radial filter to the bottom left corner to reduce the exposure in this region.
Lightroom - Saved the complete processing sequence as Lightroom preset 20170212-004.
Lightroom - Output the image as a JPEG image using the "Maximum" quality option (8272 x 6200 pixels).
PhotoSync - Copied the JPEG file to my iPad Mini for any final processing, review, enjoyment, and posting to social media.
@MomentsForZen #MomentsForZen #MFZ #Hasselblad #501CM #CFV50c #Lightroom #Night #NightSky #LongExposure #Sky #Cityscape #FisheyeLens #WideAngleLens #Apartments #Stars #MilkyWay #LargeMagellanicCloud #LMC #Pointers #SouthernPointers #SouthernCross #Crux #AlphaCentauri #BetaCentauri #Hadar #Coalsack #CoalsackNebula #JewelBox #OmegaCentauri #EtaCarinae #StarTrails #LightTrails
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 (IMBH).
This image shows the location of the IMBH in Omega Centauri. If confirmed, at its distance of 17 000 light-years the candidate black hole resides closer to Earth than the 4.3 million solar mass black hole in the centre of the Milky Way, which is 26 000 light-years away. Besides the galactic centre, it would also be the only known case of a number of stars closely bound to a massive black hole.
[Image Description: This image presents three panels. The first image shows the global cluster Omega Centauri, appearing as a highly dense and numerous collection of shining stars. The second image shows the details of the central region of this cluster, with a closer view of the individual stars. The third image shows the location of the IMBH candidate in the cluster.]
Credits: ESA/Hubble & NASA, M. Häberle; CC BY 4.0
ESA's star-surveying Gaia mission has released a treasure trove of new data as part of its ‘focused product release’. As part of this data release Gaia explored Omega Centauri, the largest globular cluster that can be seen from Earth and a great example of a ‘typical’ cluster.
The spacecraft’s beautiful new view of Omega Centauri is shown here as visualised by Gaia Sky. It combines stars as seen in Gaia Data Release 3 and via a new Gaia mode implemented as part of the new data release. Stars with varying brightness levels are on display, ranging from a magnitude just below the naked eye's visibility limit to those over a million times fainter.
The team has revealed 526 587 stars that Gaia had not seen before, detecting stars that lie too close together to be measured in the telescope’s regular pipeline and those in the cluster core that are up to 15 times fainter than previously seen. The new data reveal 10 times more stars in Omega Centauri; this new knowledge will enable researchers to study the cluster’s structure, how the constituent stars are distributed, how they’re moving, and more.
Alt-text: This image shows a star cluster set against a dark background. The further in towards the cluster’s centre, the higher the density of stars.
Acknowledgments: Toni Sagristà, Stefan Jordan, Katja Weingrill, Alexey Mints, Tineke Roegiers
Credits: ESA/Gaia/DPAC, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO
ESA's star-surveying Gaia mission has released a treasure trove of new data as part of its ‘focused product release’. As part of this data release Gaia explored Omega Centauri, the largest globular cluster that can be seen from Earth and a great example of a ‘typical’ cluster.
The team has revealed 526 587 stars that Gaia had not seen before, detecting stars that lie too close together to be measured in the telescope’s regular pipeline and those in the cluster core that are up to 15 times fainter than previously seen. The new data reveal 10 times more stars in Omega Centauri; this new knowledge will enable researchers to study the cluster’s structure, how the constituent stars are distributed, how they’re moving, and more.
This image is from today’s data release; it is contrasted against a previous image from Gaia's Data Release 3 to highlight just how many new sources have been imaged in the cluster’s centre. Only faint stars within Omega Centauri are plotted here.
Alt-text: This image shows a star cluster, which appears as a circular collection of bright stars against a dark background. There are so many stars present in the cluster's core that the central region appears to be almost solidly bright rather than comprising individual stars.
Acknowledgments: Michele Trabucchi, Nami Mowlavi and Thomas Lebzelter
Credits: ESA/Gaia/DPAC, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO
So big and bright that it can be seen with the naked eye even when only a few degrees above the horizon, this star cluster is believed to be the core of a dwarf galaxy that was captured by our own Milky Way galaxy some billions of years ago. Although visible from parts of the continental United States, this cluster remains very close to the southern horizon for observers in the mid-northern latitudes and is best seen there for only an hour or two each night during April, May, and June.
Shown here when it was barely eight degrees above the horizon and somewhat dimmed by light pollution, this photo was taken using a 5 inch aperture, f/4.2 telescope and a Sony NEX-5R digital camera (ISO 3200, a stack of seventy-seven images each exposed for 30 seconds, producing a total exposure integration time of just over 38 minutes).
This is one of the few deep sky objects that looks impressive even as a preview on your camera's built-in LCD display.
Image registration, integration, and initial processing done with PixInsight v01.08.01.1087 Ripley (x64) with final tweaks in Photoshop CS5 and Apple's Preview application.
This photo is best viewed in the Flickr light box.
All rights reserved.
This frame was a mixture of frames taken with and without dual narrow band filter. Density 50% of frame taken with clear filter on frame taken with dual narrow band filter.
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 or 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: 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 with NB12 and 4 times x 60 seconds, 5 x 240 seconds, and 12 x 600 seconds at ISO 1.600 and f/3.2 with Clear Filter
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.
2024-02-07 0840 UTC
Winter Star Party, Scout Key, Florida
Camera: ZWO ASI 2600MC
Guide Camera: ZWO ASI 290MM
Telescope: Vixen ED80 f/6.5
Mount: Losmandy G11
Integration: 80 minutes
Capture: NINA
Postprocessing: Pixinsight
I’m pleased to share that this image is now featured on NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day - July 26, 2025.
After a long break from astroimaging, I’m delighted to share first light from our new SkyFlux Team remote rig in the southern skies, hosted by Remote Astrophotography with Martin Pugh
Omega Centauri is the largest and brightest globular cluster in our Milky Way galaxy, located about 17,000 light-years away in the constellation Centaurus. It’s a true showpiece of the southern sky, visible to the naked eye under dark skies and spanning more than 150 light-years across, making it both larger and more massive than most other globular clusters.
Containing an estimated 10 million stars, Omega Centauri is so dense that its core packs tens of thousands of stars within a few light-years, creating the brilliant swarm you see here. Recent studies suggest it might be the remnant core of a small dwarf galaxy long ago cannibalized by the Milky Way.
Intriguingly, evidence suggests that Omega Centauri may not be a typical globular cluster at all, it is likely the remnant core of an ancient dwarf galaxy that was captured and gradually disrupted by the Milky Way long ago. Its unusually complex stellar populations and spread of ages support this idea, making it a living fossil of galactic evolution.
Imaging Omega Centauri reveals its incredible population of old stars, with subtle differences in color indicating their varying temperatures and evolutionary stages. This portrait captures the cluster’s dense core and the gradual thinning of stars into the surrounding halo, a window into one of our galaxy’s ancient building blocks.
Data: SkyFlux Team @ Remote Astrophotography with Martin Pugh
SkyFlux Team: Michael Kalika, Oleg Shargorodsky, Leo Shatz
Processing and copyright: Leo Shatz
Total integration time: 2.83 hours (unguided)
For technical details, please see this image on AstroBin
This is a collage of the Top 9 globular clusters in the southern hemisphere skies.
Of the group, only Omega Centauri and Messier 22 can be observed from northern latitudes, and then not well as they lie low in the south for many observers. As such, northerners consider the Great Hercules Cluster, Messier 13, a superb target. But it pales in spectacle compared to almost all the globulars here. The best deep-sky objects are in the austral skies!
All the images were taken with the same telescope at the same focal length and with a similar set of exposures, to allow a ready comparison between the clusters' sizes and appearances.
Some, like 47 Tucanae and NGC 2808, are richer than the others with dense bright cores. In the classification scheme devised by Harlow Shapley and refined by Helen Sawyer Hogg and Henrietta Swope, they are Concentration Class III and I respectively, on the scale that runs from Roman Numeral I (most densely packed) to XII (loosely concentrated).
Examples of the other end of the scale shown here are NGC 3201 and NGC 4372, at Class X and XII, respectively. They appear visibly looser to the eye and camera, with fewer stars distributed more evenly across their disks.
The central object in this collage, fittingly so, is in a class by itself. Omega Centauri, aka NGC 5139, is so large and rich it is classified as a dwarf galaxy, or at least the core of an ex-dwarf galaxy. It is the largest globular in angular size in our sky (it is large even in binoculars), but it is also intrinsically the largest Milky Way globular known, at 150 light years across. Within its volume is an estimated 10 million stars — it would never be night on any planet in Omega Cen!
47 Tucanae is second only to Omega for visual spectacle in the eyepiece of any telescope, though many observers consider it the better of the two globulars, with its dense core that can exhibit some color.
NGC 6723, while technically in Sagittarius, lies next to the complex of bright reflection and dark dusty nebulosity in Corona Australis, which adds the blue glow in the frame corner here.
There are certainly other fine globulars down under that I've not included in this collage, such as Messier 4 in Scorpius and NGC 288 in Sculptor. Even NGC 362 right next to 47 Tucanae is a fine target, but is overlooked in the shadow of its glorius companion.
All these globulars lie in the same sector of the sky surrounding the galactic core, as they orbit the center of our galaxy. Indeed, their concentration in that direction in our sky was the clue that led astronomers like Shapley to realize the Sun and Earth do not lie at the center of the Milky Way.
But exactly how and when globulars form is still a matter of debate. They seem to be a by-product of galaxy formation or perhaps galaxy collisions. Our Milky Way is accompanied by about 160 known globulars. These are among the best of the lot!
North is up on all the frames. The objects are presented in order of increasing Right Ascension, i.e. from west to east, across the sky, from the westernmost (47 Tuc) at upper left, to the eastermost (NGC 6752) at lower right.
Technical:
All images taken remotely in 2024 at the iTelescope Observatory at Siding Spring, NSW, Australia, using the T33 telescope, a 12.5-inch f/9 Ritchey-Chretien reflector made by RCOS, on a Paramount ME mount, and equipped with an Apogee Alta U16 CCD camera with 9-micron pixels. All images are from monochrome sub-frames taken through clear Luminance, and Red, Green and Blue filters to create a full-color image in processing in Photoshop. Exposures were 2 minutes for L and 4 minutes each for R, G and B subs.
- FSQ-106ED (D=106mm, f=530mm)
- HOBYM Crux 200HDA
- CentralDS AstroZ6
- Lacerta MGEN-II w. 50mm guide scope
- Processed in Pixinsight and LightRoom
With the prospect of reduced light pollution, I was looking forward to photographing the night sky when visiting the town of Corowa. Unfortunately, the near full waxing gibbous Moon put paid to dark skies. What can you do? Take the shot anyway.
This is a 34 minute star-trail long-exposure showing the apparent rotation around the South Celestial Pole. Along the bottom is the typical Australian suburban backyard. The Moon was just out of frame top right. The saint smudge along the top near the lefthand edge is the Small Magellanic Cloud. The Large Magellanic Cloud is the smudge centre left. The diagonal smudge heading from the centre bottom to the top right is the Milky Way, from Carina at the bottom, the Southern Cross, the Coalsack Dark Nebula, the Pointers, through to Centaurus and the start of the Great Rift.
-———
[ Location - Corowa, New South Wales, Australia ]
Photography notes ...
The photograph was taken using the following hardware configuration ...
(Year of manufacture indicated in braces where known.)
- Hasselblad 501CM Body (Chrome) - S/N 10SH26953 (2002).
- Hasselblad CFV-50c Digital Back for Hasselblad V mount camera (2016).
- Hasselblad Focusing Screen for the CFV-50c digital back, with focusing prism and crop markings.
- Hasselblad 45 Degree Viewfinder PME-45 42297 (2001).
- Hasselblad Carl Zeiss fisheye lens - F-Distagon 3.5/30 CF T* (1996).
- Really Right Stuff (RRS) TFC-14 Series 1 Carbon Fiber Tripod - MFR # 13996.
- Really Right Stuff (RRS) BH-30 Ball Head with Mini Screw-Knob Clamp - MFR # BH-30 PRO.
- Hasselblad HATQCH (3043326) Tripod Quick Coupling.
- Arca-Swiss ARUCP38 Universal Camera Plate 3/8”.
- Nikon AR-3 Shutter Release Cable.
- Artisan & Artist ACAM-302 Silk Cord for Hassleblad Cameras (Black).
I acquired this photograph (8272 x 6200 pixels) with an ISO of 100, exposure time of 34:08 seconds (20170930 @ 21:42:23 to 22:16:31), and aperture of f/11.0
Post-processing ...
Finder - Removed the CF card from the camera digital back and placed it in a Lexar 25-in-1 USB card reader. Then used Finder on my MacBook Air to download the raw image file (3FR extension) from the card.
Lightroom - Imported the 3FR image. Applied a standard metadata preset (20161110 Import 001) during the import process.
Lightroom - Used the Map module to add the location details to the EXIF header.
Lightroom - Used the Spot Removal tool (Clone mode) to attenuate a number of sensor dust spots.
Lightroom - Made various lighting and color adjustments to the image.
Lightroom - Straightened the image then applied a crop, retaining the original 4:3 aspect ratio.
Lightroom - Saved the Develop module settings as a preset.
Lightroom - Output the image as a JPEG image using the “Maximum” quality option (7632 x 5720 pixels).
PhotoSync - Copied the JPEG file to my iPad Mini for any final processing, review, enjoyment, and posting to social media.
@MomentsForZen #MomentsForZen #MFZ #Hasselblad #501CM #CFV50c #Lightroom #Night #NightSky #LongExposure #Sky #FisheyeLens #WideAngleLens #Backyard #Stars #MilkyWay #LargeMagellanicCloud #SmallMagellanicCloud #LMC #SMC #Pointers #SouthernPointers #SouthernCross #Crux #AlphaCentauri #BetaCentauri #Hadar #Coalsack #CoalsackNebula #JewelBox #OmegaCentauri #EtaCarinae #StarTrails #LightTrails #GreatRift #Centaurus #SouthCelestialPole
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
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope snapped this panoramic view of a colorful assortment of 100,000 stars residing in the crowded core of a giant star cluster. The image reveals a small region inside the massive globular cluster Omega Centauri, which boasts nearly 10 million stars.
Globular clusters, ancient swarms of stars united by gravity, are the homesteaders of our Milky Way Galaxy. The stars in Omega Centauri are between 10 billion and 12 billion years old. The cluster lies about 16,000 light-years from Earth.
The majority of the stars in the image are yellow-white, like our Sun. These are adult stars that are shining by hydrogen fusion. Toward the end of their normal lives, the stars become cooler and larger. These late-life stars are the orange dots in the image.
Even later in their life cycles, the stars continue to cool down and expand in size, becoming red giants. These bright red stars swell to many times larger than our Sun's size and begin to shed their gaseous envelopes.
After ejecting most of their mass and exhausting much of their hydrogen fuel, the stars appear brilliant blue. Only a thin layer of material covers their super-hot cores. These stars are desperately trying to extend their lives by fusing helium in their cores. At this stage, they emit much of their light at ultraviolet wavelengths.
When the helium runs out, the stars reach the end of their lives. Only their burned-out cores remain, and they are called white dwarfs (the faint blue dots in the image). White dwarfs are no longer generating energy through nuclear fusion and have gravitationally contracted to the size of Earth. They will continue to cool and grow dimmer for many billions of years until they become dark cinders.
Other stars that appear in the image are so-called "blue stragglers." They are older stars that acquire a new lease on life when they collide and merge with other stars. The encounters boost the stars' energy-production rate, making them appear bluer.
For more information, visit:
hubblesite.org/image/2609/news_release/2009-25
Credits: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble SM4 ERO Team
It's a montage made out of 2 pictures, all of them afocal, Xiaomi Redmi 7A ISO100 16s f/2,2 3,8mm EV0.
Edited with MS Picture Manager, Photofiltre and MS Paint.
I made this montage in order to record the region towards Centaurus-Carina constellations over the bright and polluted skies of Sao Paulo.
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.
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.
Woke to find that the night sky was clear of clouds. This was opportunity that I had been waiting for - i.e., a chance to take some night sky photographs using the 30mm fisheye lens for my Hasselblad 501CM camera. This lens is the widest C-mount lens, and should be a reasonable lens for photographing in the night sky.
It was immediately obvious that the width of the view meant that the Milky Way stood out more clearly from the background as a ribbon with a high concentration of stars and an elevated brightness.
The curves of the lines in our apartment building were the most obvious sign of the fisheye geometry. I find this departure from rectilinear geometry quite attractive, and refreshing.
The scene contained a number of notable structure - e.g., ...
- The Milky Way.
- The Large Magellanic Cloud (LMG) - The small, bright region just above the top of the apartment building near the right hand edge of the image.
- The "Southern Pointers" - Alpha and Beta Centauri (a.k.a. Hadar).
- The Southern Cross (Crux)
- The Coalsack Dark Nebula.
- The Jewel Box open star cluster.
- The globular cluster Omega Centauri (NGC 5139, Caldwell C80).
- The diffuse nebula "Eta Carinae" (NGC 3372, Caldwell C92)
Overall, you couldn't have wiped the smile off my face in relation to my recent acquisition - i.e., the 30mm f/3.5 fisheye lens for my Hasselblad 501CM camera body.
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The following is a reasonably detailed statement of the post-processing that I carried out. I have included this information "for the record" and to make it easier when I need to process similar raw image captures ("photographs") in the future.
The challenges included ...
- High levels of ambient (background) light that swamps the contrast and masks the more subtle night sky features.
- The brightness of the building facade which places constraints on the changes to the maximum exposure and the enhancement of the "highlights". ***
- The "murky" brown color of the sky which made it necessary to manage a change to the "temperature" (i.e., White Balance).
[*** This aspect could be side-stepped through the use of layering and blending, but I had decided to largely stick to processing without the use of these features.]
With the above in mind, the post-processing that I carried out in Lightroom ...
- Modified the Temperature (4200K).
- Increased the Exposure and Contrast (Exposure 1.45, Contrast 100).
- Broadened the mid-tones by reducing the Highlights and Whites (-100, -100) whilst increasing the Shadows and Black (+81, +100).
- Increased the Clarity (+100) whilst decreasing the Saturation (-50).
- Applied more subtle adjustments to the Tone curve (Highlights 0, Lights -95, Darks 34, Shadows -35).
- Permitted a strong reduction in the saturation of Purple colors (Red -50, Purple -100, Magenta -50) to remove the purple mantle that surrounded the brighter stars.
- Retained the default Sharpening.
- Applied a moderate amount of Luminance noise reduction (Luminance noise reduction 35, Detail 50, Contrast 0).
- Applied Color noise reduction (Color noise reduction 75, Detail 0, Smoothness 100).
- Used the maximum amount of Dehaze filtering (100).
- Utilized several Graduated and Radial filters to apply local adjustments to the Exposure, Saturation, and Clarity / Dehaze.
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[ Location - Barton, Australian Capital Territory, Australia ]
Photography notes ...
The photograph was taken using the following hardware configuration ...
(Year of manufacture indicated in braces where known.)
- Hasselblad 501CM Body (Chrome) - S/N 10SH26953 (2002).
- Hasselblad CFV-50c Digital Back for Hasselblad V mount camera (2016).
- Hasselblad Focusing Screen for the CFV-50c digital back, with focusing prism and crop markings.
- Hasselblad 45 Degree Viewfinder PME-45 42297 (2001).
- Hasselblad Carl Zeiss fisheye lens - F-Distagon 3.5/30 CF T* (1996).
- Really Right Stuff (RRS) TFC-14 Series 1 Carbon Fiber Tripod - MFR # 13996.
- Really Right Stuff (RRS) BH-30 Ball Head with Mini Screw-Knob Clamp - MFR # BH-30 PRO.
- Hasselblad HATQCH (3043326) Tripod Quick Coupling.
- Arca-Swiss ARUCP38 Universal Camera Plate 3/8".
- Nikon AR-3 Shutter Release Cable.
- Artisan & Artist ACAM-302 Silk Cord for Hassleblad Cameras (Black).
I acquired the photograph (8272 x 6200 pixels) with an ISO of 3200, exposure time of 8 seconds, and aperture of f/3.5
Post-processing ...
Finder - Removed the CF card from the camera digital back and placed it in a Lexar 25-in-1 USB card reader. Then used Finder on my MacBook Air to download the raw image file (3FR extension) from the card.
Lightroom - Imported the 3FR image.
Lightroom - Used the Map module to add the location details to the EXIF header.
Lightroom - Applied the adjustments in the Develop module as outlined above
Lightroom - Saved the Develop module settings as preset 20170206-108.
Lightroom - Output the image as a JPEG image using the "Maximum" quality option (8272 x 6200 pixels).
PhotoSync - Copied the JPEG file to my iPad Mini for any final processing, review, enjoyment, and posting to social media.
@MomentsForZen #MomentsForZen #MFZ #Hasselblad #501CM #CFV50c #Lightroom #Night #NightSky #LongExposure #Sky #Cityscape #FisheyeLens #WideAngleLens #Apartments #Stars #MilkyWay #LargeMagellanicCloud #LMC #Pointers #SouthernPointers #SouthernCross #Cruc #AlphaCentauri #BetaCentauri #Hadar #Coalsack #CoalsackNebula #JewelBox #OmegaCentauri #EtaCarinae
>LAT. 37°38'N< Riprendere il famoso ammasso globulare Omega Centauri (NGC5139) è stata una bella sfida personale.
Questo è il più brillante ammasso globulare osservabile ad occhio nudo e il suo diametro apparente in cielo è pari a quello della luna piena.
La sfida viene dal fatto che esso si trova in cielo con declinazione -47°29', posizione
che dista dal polo SUD celeste circa 42°, quindi è osservabile teoricamente da luoghi a sud della latitudine +42°N (Roma).
Gli astrofili sanno quanto difficile sia riprendere un oggetto così basso a pochi gradi sopra l'orizzonte (Biancavilla 37°38'N), e sopra il quale rimane teoricamente solo 3 ore.
A ciò aggiungiamo il fatto che dal mio sito non riuscivo a scorgerlo ad occhio nudo ne tanto meno con il binocolo a causa dell'inquinamento luminoso (IL) che è massimo vicino l'orizzonte.
Il puntamento automatico della HEQ5 ha funzionato bene, ma non ho potuto utilizzare l'autoguida perchè l'IL copriva le stelle.
Eppure la luce delle stelle è riuscita a raggiungere il sensore della 550D insieme a una grande quantità di IL, che ricordo solo nelle foto analogiche con tempi di posa di 40-60min.
L'immagine è stata croppata al 80% circa.
Visitate qst link per una versione con maggior risoluzione astrob.in/5974/
Ottica: Rifrattore APO Scopos TL805 80mm/f7 + WO 0.8X + filtro Astronomik CLS
Modello fotocamera Canon EOS 550D (Rebel T2i) mod. Baader BCF
Seeing 2 (scala Antoniadi inversa)
42x60s 1600iso / 21 dark /21 flat / 21 bias
Integration 0h 42min
date 18/02/2012
temperatura 4°C (media)
Location Biancavilla -Catania-(Italy) -Classe 7(scala Bortle).
Elaborazione DSS + PSCS3
The deep south Milky Way from Alpha and Beta Centauri (at left) to the False Cross in Vela and Carina (at right). At centre is the Carina Nebula and the Southern Cross, Crux, with the dark Coal Sack. Omega Centauri is the bright “star” at upper left. The large naked eye star cluster at lower right below the False Cross is NGC 2516.
This is a stack of 5 x 4 minute exposures at f/2.8 with the 35mm Canon L-series lens and filter-modified Canon 5D MkII at ISO 1000, with an additional similar exposure layered in taken through the Kenko Softon A filter to provide the star glows. Tracked on the iOptron Sky Tracker. Taken from the Warrumbungles Motel grounds at the 2016 Oz Sky Star Party, April 5.
The weather forecast was for cloudy skies so I was pleasantly surprised to look up and see a very clear sky when I poked my head outside our apartment in the early hours of the morning.
The goal in taking this photograph was to have a "reference" image of the portion of the Milky Way. Of the parts of the Milky Way that I can see, this is the furthest from the "Galactic Core" or "Galactic Centre" (i.e., the brightest part of the Milky Way). It is a relatively feature-rich portion of the Milky Way, and it is a portion that many photographers in the Northern Hemisphere are unable to see.
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A selection of the more notable features that are visible in this image ...
- The "Southern Pointers" - Alpha and Beta Centauri (a.k.a. Hadar).
- The Southern Cross.
- The Coalsack Dark Nebula.
- The Jewel Box open star cluster.
- The globular cluster Omega Centauri (NGC 5139, Caldwell C80).
- The diffuse nebula "Eta Carinae" (NGC 3372, Caldwell C92)
----------
Some final thoughts ...
The post-processing carried out in Lightroom on this photograph was targeted at ...
- Repression of fine scale high ISO / low light speckle noise.
- Enhancement of the elevated background light levels along the Milky Way. texture / structure / mid-scale signals related to the stars.
- A change to the ambient color of the image.
Some of the more important changes to the default settings ...
- Use of a number of Graduated and Radial filters.
- A reduction in the Temperature and a slight shift in the Tint from green towards magenta.
- An increase in the Exposure and Contrast.
- Application of the maximum level of the Clarity filter.
- Selective reduction in the Red, Purple and Magenta Saturation.
- Default Sharpening.
- A modest amount of Luminance noise reduction.
- The maximum amount of Color noise reduction with zero Detail and 100 Smoothness.
- Use of the Vignetting correction (and zero geometric Distortion) for a typical Zeiss wide-angle lens (in the absence of lens profiles for the Hasselblad "C" lenses).
- Application of the maximum level of the Dehaze filter.
Overall, I'm quite happy with the result, especially when I remind myself that this photograph was taken in the middle of a city that has the elevated ambient light levels that accompany a population of around 400,000.
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Links for background information ...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caldwell_catalogue
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messier_object
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_General_Catalogue
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[ Location - Barton, Australian Capital Territory, Australia ]
----------
Photography notes ...
The photograph was taken using the following hardware configuration ...
(Year of manufacture indicated in braces where known.)
- Hasselblad 501CM Body (Chrome) - S/N 10SH26953 (2002).
- Hasselblad CFV-50c Digital Back for Hasselblad V mount camera.
- Hasselblad Focusing Screen for the CFV-50c digital back, with focussing prism and crop markings.
- Hasselblad 45 Degree Viewfinder PME-45 42297 (2001).
- Hasselblad Carl Zeiss lens - Distagon 50mm f/4 CF FLE T* (1991).
- FotodioX B60 Lens Hood for Select Hasselblad Wide-Angle CF Lenses.
- Really Right Stuff (RRS) TFC-14 Series 1 Carbon Fiber Tripod - MFR # 13996.
- Really Right Stuff (RRS) BH-30 Ball Head with Mini Screw-Knob Clamp - MFR # BH-30 PRO.
- Hasselblad HATQCH (3043326) Tripod Quick Coupling.
- Arca-Swiss ARUCP38 Universal Camera Plate 3/8".
- Nikon AR-3 Shutter Release Cable.
- Artisan & Artist ACAM-302 Silk Cord for Hassleblad Cameras (Black).
To minimise "camera shake", I employed the following strategies :
a. Use of a sturdy tripod.
b. Pre-exposure mirror lock-up.
c. A mechanical shutter release cable.
I acquired this photograph (8272 x 6200 pixels) with an ISO of 3200, exposure time of 8 seconds, and aperture of f/4.0.
Post-processing ...
Finder - Removed the CF card from the camera digital back and placed it in a Lexar 25-in-1 USB card reader. Then used Finder on my MacBook Air to download the raw image file (3FR extension) from the card.
Lightroom - Imported the 3FR image. Applied a standard metadata preset (20161110 Import 001) during the import process.
Lightroom - Used the Map module to add the location details to the EXIF header.
Lightroom - Made various lighting and color adjustments to the image.
Lightroom - Saved the Develop module settings as preset 20170202-007.
Lightroom - Output the image as a JPEG image using the "Maximum" quality option (8272 x 6200 pixels).
PhotoSync - Copied the JPEG file to my iPad Mini for any final processing, review, enjoyment, and posting to social media!
@MomentsForZen #MomentsForZen #MFZ #Hasselblad #501CM #CFV50c #Lightroom #Sky #Night #Dark #Stars #MilkyWay #SouthernPointerStars #AlphaCentauri #BetaCentauri #Hadar #SouthernCross #Crux #Circinus #Centaurus #Vela #Carina #CoalsackNebula #CoalsackDarkNebula #JewelBox #OmegaCentauri #EtaCarinaeNebula
The core of the spectacular globular cluster Omega Centauri glitters with the combined light of 2 million stars in this Hubble Space Telescope image. The entire cluster contains 10 million stars, and it is among the biggest and most massive of some 200 globular clusters orbiting the Milky Way Galaxy.
Spectroscopic measurements obtained with the Gemini South observatory in Chile suggest the stars in Omega Centauri are moving around the central core of the cluster at higher than expected velocities. Among the possible explanations for these speedy stars is that an intermediate-mass black hole of approximately 40,000 solar masses resides at the center of Omega Centauri. Its powerful gravitational field speeds up the motions of stars near the core.
Astronomers have speculated for years that some globular clusters may harbor in their centers medium-size, or intermediate-mass, black holes with masses of some tens of thousands of suns. Medium-size black holes are much less massive than the supermassive black holes, which are up to billions of solar masses and reside in the centers of large galaxies.
Located 17,000 light-years from Earth, Omega Centauri is one of the few globular clusters that can be seen with the unaided eye. Found in the constellation Centaurus, it resembles a small cloud in the southern sky and might easily be mistaken for a comet.
For more information, visit: hubblesite.org/contents/news-releases/2008/news-2008-14.html
Credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA);
Acknowledgment: A. Cool (San Francisco State University) and J. Anderson (STScI)
A colorful assortment of 100,000 stars resides in the crowded core of Omega Centauri, a giant globular cluster.
This is one of the first images taken by the Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3), installed aboard Hubble during Servicing Mission 4 in May 2009. The camera can snap sharp images over a broad range of wavelengths, including near-infrared light, visible light, and near-ultraviolet radiation. The image, differing from previous Hubble images of Omega Centauri, showcases the camera's color versatility by revealing a variety of stars in key stages of their life cycles.
The majority of the stars in the image are yellow-white, like our Sun. These are adult stars that are shining by hydrogen fusion. Toward the end of their normal lives, the stars become cooler and larger. These late-life stars are the orange dots in the image.
Even later in their life cycles, the stars continue to cool down and expand in size, becoming red giants. These bright red stars swell to many times larger than our Sun's size and begin to shed their gaseous envelopes.
After ejecting most of their mass and exhausting much of their hydrogen fuel, the stars appear brilliant blue. Only a thin layer of material covers their super-hot cores. These stars are fusing helium in their cores. At this stage, they emit much of their light at ultraviolet wavelengths.
When the helium runs out, the stars reach the end of their lives. Only their burned-out cores remain, and they are called white dwarfs (the faint blue dots in the image). White dwarfs are no longer generating energy through nuclear fusion and have gravitationally contracted to the size of Earth. They will continue to cool and grow dimmer for many billions of years until they become dark cinders.
Other stars that appear in the image are so-called "blue stragglers." They are older stars that acquire a new lease on life when they collide and merge with other stars. The encounters boost the stars' energy-production rate, making them appear bluer.
The average distance between any two stars in the cluster's crowded core is only about a third of a light-year, roughly 13 times closer than our Sun's nearest stellar neighbor, Alpha Centauri. If anyone lived in this globular cluster, they would behold a star-saturated sky that is roughly 100 times brighter than Earth's sky.
Globular clusters were thought to be assemblages of stars that share the same birth date. Evidence suggests, however, that Omega Centauri has at least two populations of stars with different ages. Some astronomers think that the cluster may be the remnant of a small galaxy that was gravitationally disrupted long ago by the Milky Way.
For more information, visit: hubblesite.org/contents/news-releases/2009/news-2009-25.html
Credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble SM4 ERO Team
Imaged this back in 2006, but didn't know how to process it. While I'm still not an expert, I did manage to get it separated from the light pollution.
Omega Centauri is a southern sky object, but us Texans get treated to it. This was taken at the 2006 Texas Star Party. This star cluster is visibly the largest for earthlings. It is so big and bright, you can see it naked eye in dark skies.
Edited Hubble Space Telescope image of the core of the globular cluster Omega Centauri.
Original caption: The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope snapped this panoramic view of a colourful assortment of 100 000 stars residing in the crowded core of a giant star cluster. The image reveals a small region inside the massive globular cluster Omega Centauri, which boasts nearly 10 million stars. Globular clusters, ancient swarms of stars united by gravity, are almost as old as our Milky Way galaxy. The stars in Omega Centauri are between 10 billion and 12 billion years old. The cluster lies about 16 000 light-years from Earth. This is one of the first images taken by the new Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3), installed aboard Hubble in May 2009, during Servicing Mission 4. The camera can snap sharp images over a broad range of wavelengths. The photograph showcases the camera's colour versatility by revealing a variety of stars in key stages of their life cycles. The majority of the stars in the image are yellow-white, like our Sun. These are adult stars that are shining by hydrogen fusion. Towards the ends of their normal lives, the stars become cooler and larger. These late-life stars are the orange dots in the image. Even later in their life cycles, the stars continue to cool down and expand in size, becoming red giants. These bright red stars swell to many times larger than our Sun's size and begin to shed their gaseous envelopes. After ejecting most of their mass and exhausting much of their hydrogen fuel, the stars appear brilliant blue. Only a thin layer of material covers their super-hot cores. These stars are desperately trying to extend their lives by fusing helium in their cores. At this stage, they emit much of their light at ultraviolet wavelengths. When the helium runs out, the stars reach the end of their lives. Only their burnt-out cores remain, and they are called white dwarfs (the faint blue dots in the image). White dwarfs are no longer generating energy through nuclear fusion and have gravitationally contracted to the size of Earth. They will continue to cool and grow dimmer for many billions of years until they become dark cinders. Other stars that appear in the image are known as "blue stragglers". They are older stars that acquire a new lease of life when they collide and merge with other stars. The encounters boost the stars' energy-production rate, making them appear bluer. All of the stars in the image are cosy neighbours. The average distance between any two stars in the cluster's crowded core is only about a third of a light-year, roughly 13 times closer than our Sun's nearest stellar neighbour, Proxima Centauri. Although the stars are close together, WFC3's sharpness can resolve each of them as individual stars. If anyone lived in this globular cluster, they would behold a star-saturated sky that is roughly 100 times brighter than Earth's sky. Globular clusters were thought to be assemblages of stars that share the same birth date. Evidence suggests, however, that Omega Centauri has at least two populations of stars with different ages. Some astronomers think that the cluster may be the remnant of a small galaxy that was gravitationally disrupted long ago by the Milky Way, losing stars and gas. Omega Centauri is among the biggest and most massive of some 200 globular clusters orbiting the Milky Way. It is one of the few globular clusters that can be seen with the unaided eye. Named by Johann Bayer in 1603 as the 24th brightest object in the constellation of Centaurus, it resembles a small cloud in the southern sky and might easily be mistaken for a comet. Hubble observed Omega Centauri on 15 July 2009, in ultraviolet and visible light. These Hubble observations of Omega Centauri are part of the Hubble Servicing Mission 4 Early Release Observations.
The Omega Centauri Globular Cluster is located in the constellation Centaurus, who is a half-man and half-horse figure of Greek mythology. NGC 5139 is visible to the naked eye for viewers of the night sky located in the Earth’s southern hemisphere. It occupies about the same area as the full Moon in the night sky.
The Omega Centauri Globular Cluster is a spheroidal structure that contains about 10 million stars that are more and more densely packed as the center of the cluster is approached from its outer limits. Stars near the center of the cluster are estimated to be only 0.1 light years apart. This only about one-fortieth of the distance from the Sun to the nearest star. The cluster is the largest of the more than 150 other globular cluster that reside in the Milky Way Galaxy’s halo which resides above and below the galactic disk. NGC 5139 is about 170 light years in diameter and is about 16,000 light years from Earth. It is biggest and brightest globular cluster in our Milky Way Galaxy system. The Milky Way Galaxy globular clusters orbit the galaxy in its halo. Some large galaxies have thousands of globular clusters orbiting them in their halos.
The composition of the stars in NGC 5139 suggests that the cluster formed in the early days of the Universe. The estimated age of the Omega Centauri Cluster is a about 12 billion years old. The stars in the cluster have similar characteristics to the stars in the central bulge of the Milky Way Galaxy. NGC 5139 is probably the remnants of a dwarf galaxy that had been consumed and ejected by the Milky Way Galaxy within the 2 billion years after the big bang occurred. As such, the stars in NGC 5139 are basically yellow average sized stars and white dwarfs.
Evidence exists that an intermediate black hole of about 40,000 solar masses is located at the center of the cluster. This can be inferred by analyzing the orbital motion of the stars that are closer to the center of the cluster.
The CHI-1 astrograph used to capture the image of NGC 5139 is located at El Sauce Observatory in the Rio Hurtado Valley in the high-altitude Atacama Desert of Chile. CHI-1 is part of the Telescope Live global system of remotely controlled robotic astrographs.
The CHI-1 astrograph is optically composed of a PlaneWave CDK24 610 mm (24 inch) diameter reflecting telescope with a photographic speed of f/6.5. The imaging system attached to CHI-1 is the Finger Lakes Instrumentation FLI Proline PL9000 Monochrome CCD astronomical imaging camera. AstroDon wideband color filters (Luminance, Red, Green, and Blue) were inserted between the telescope and the camera to acquire the complete set of imaging data used to make the final true color data of my Flickr photo. The astrograph is mounted on an equatorial Mathis MI-1000/1250 fork mount. A total of 2.7 hours of imaging data was acquired to process the final color image shown above.
The data was downloaded over the Internet to my home for processing on my PC. The following software was used to process the calibrated dated from CHI-1: Astro Pixel Processor, PixInsight, and Photoshop.
Omega Centarui taken by BAS member Wyck Hoffler
28May08
21 one-minute sub-exposures
made with the modified Nikon D50 at prime focus of the 12.5-inch x f/6 Newtonian telescope
ImagesPlus3 was used for camera control and image processing
This Hubble image shows off 2 million members of the biggest and brightest ball of stars in our galaxy. Caldwell 80, also known as NGC 5139 and commonly called Omega Centauri, is home to around 10 million stars. Located about 17,000 light-years away from Earth toward the Centaurus constellation, the cluster has a diameter of about 450 light-years. This image, taken with the Advanced Camera for Surveys in 2002, covers a region only about 50 light-years across.
Globular clusters like this one are spherical groups of mostly old, low-mass stars that are bound together by gravity. Omega Centauri has always been a bit of a black sheep since it has several characteristics that set it apart. In addition to it being the most massive globular cluster in our galaxy, it also includes stars of various ages, whereas other globular clusters typically contain stars from only one generation. What’s more, observations using Hubble and ground-based telescopes indicate that there is a black hole at the center of the cluster. This suggests that Omega Centauri may not be a globular cluster after all — it might actually be a dwarf galaxy that has somehow been stripped of its outer stars.
Omega Centauri has been known since at least the time of the ancient astronomer Ptolemy, though he thought the cluster was a star. English astronomer Edmund Halley classified it as a nebulous object in 1677. Omega Centauri was finally correctly identified as a star cluster by another English astronomer, John Herschel, in 1836.
With a magnitude of 3.7, Omega Centauri is often considered the most dazzling globular cluster in the sky. It’s so bright that it can easily be seen with the unaided eye, though binoculars or a telescope will reveal an especially breathtaking spectacle. The cluster is a favorite observing target for amateur astronomers, but it is only visible to observers at low northern latitudes and south of the equator. Autumn skies in the Southern Hemisphere will present the best opportunity to observe it.
For more information about Hubble’s observations of Caldwell 80, see:
hubblesite.org/contents/news-releases/2008/news-2008-14.h...
hubblesite.org/contents/news-releases/2001/news-2001-33.h...
hubblesite.org/contents/media/images/2009/25/2609-Image.html
Credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA); Acknowledgment: A. Cool (San Francisco State University) and J. Anderson (STScI)
For Hubble's Caldwell catalog website and information on how to find these objects in the night sky, visit:
This Hubble image, which includes ultraviolet and visible light captured by the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 in 1997, zooms in on the center of Caldwell 80 (Omega Centauri). The image resolves about 50,000 stars in a region about 13 light-years across.
Credit: NASA/ESA and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA); Acknowledgment: A. Cool (SFSU)
For Hubble's Caldwell catalog website and information on how to find these objects in the night sky, visit:
Shot using Sony A7 III (ISO3200, 10s) and Sony GM 24mm @ f/1.4. 8 vertical panels, pre-processed using RawTherapee, panorama assembled using Hugin and final post-processing using RawTherapee
Seeing and imaging Omega Centauri is always a treat. Even in the Big Bend of Texas it only gets about 10 degrees above the southern horizon. After days of clouds in Austin our 2nd night in Terlingua was spectacularly dark and clear. Seeing was only average and deteriorated. I only used the first 75 minutes of data in this image. This was my first dark sky shoot with this classic Nikkor 180mm ED lens and I'm very pleased with the result.
Target: Omega Centauri GC (NGC 5139), the largest and brightest of all cosmic disco balls in the night sky.
This enigmatic globular cluster is visible with the naked eye in the southern hemisphere. Located 15800 light-years away and orbiting through the halo of our Milky Way, it is packed with ~10 million stars within a volume of ~150 light-years in diameter.
Telescope gear:
Sky-Watcher 150mm F/5 achromat refractor
Sky-Watcher EQ5 mount with Astronomy GPUSB EQMOD
Unmodified Canon EOS 650D
Optolong L-Pro 2" Deep Sky Filter
Hotech 2" SCA self-centering field flattener
Astromania Bahtinov focus mask
Starfield 60mm F/3.6 guide scope
Altair Astro GPCAM2 290 mono guide camera
Camera settings:
Captured over several nights from February to April 2020.
210 x 3 min light frames at ISO200 with dark, bias, flat and dark flat frames.
Software:
Astro Photography Tool for capturing, PHD2 for guiding, Deep Sky Stacker for stacking and PixInsight for processing.
Yolanda Combrink
Instragram: @yc_astrophotography
I prepared this night sky image to provide a location map for more detailed, higher resolution photographs of features that are present in the Constellations of Crux and Centaurus. I don’t often use an 80mm lens for night sky photographs, but I am very happy with the level of detail in the output here. This focal length is midway between the wide angle (30-40mm) and mild telephoto (150mm and 250mm lenses that I use more often. The following features of interest are presented clearly in this image; Hadar (one of the Southern Pointers), the Milky Way, the Jewel Box, the Southern Cross, the Coalsack Nebula, and Omega Centauri.
The annotation was added using Pixelmator Pro.
A “clean” version of this image along with details of the hardware, capture, and post-processing can be seen at ...
www.flickr.com/photos/momentsforzen/27788369468/
[ Location - Barton, Australian Capital Territory, Australia ]
@MomentsForZen #MomentsForZen #MFZ #Hasselblad #X1D #PixInsight #Photoshop #GradientXTerminator #Lightroom #PhotoSync #Sky #Night #Dark #Stars #Centaurus #Crux #OmegaCentauri #MilkyWay #Hadar #CoalsackNebula #SouthernCross #JewelBox
Omega Centauri (NGC5139) is the largest known globular star cluster in the Milky Way. Taken on Dec 20, 2022 at 5:14am facing SE from Cabo Rojo, Puerto Rico. Also seen is a secretive Chinese satellite SJ 16-02 and an Aerostat that is used to monitor marine and air traffic in the Caribbean for the US Customs and Border Protection Agency.
Astronomers have used NASA's Hubble Space Telescope to peer into the center of a dense swarm of stars called Omega Centauri. Located some 17,000 light-years from Earth, Omega Centauri is a massive globular star cluster, containing several million stars swirling in locked orbits around a common center of gravity. The stars are packed so densely in the cluster's core that it is difficult for ground-based telescopes to make out individual stars. Hubble's high resolution is able to pick up where ground-based telescopes leave off, capturing distinct points of light from stars at the very center of the cluster.
Omega Centauri is so large in our sky that only a small part of it fit within the field of view of Hubble's Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 instrument, which captured this image. Yet even this tiny patch contains some 50,000 stars, all packed into a region only about 13 light-years wide. For comparison, a similarly sized region centered on the Sun would contain about a half dozen stars.
The vast majority of stars in this Hubble image are faint, yellow-white dwarf stars similar to our Sun. The handful of bright yellow-orange stars are expanding, dying red giants. A number of faint blue stars are also visible in the image. These are in a brief phase of evolution between the dwarf stage and the red-giant stage, during which the surface temperature is high. The stars in Omega Centauri are very old, about 12 billion years.
The stars in the core of Omega Centauri are so densely packed that occasionally one of them will actually collide with another one. Even in the dense center of Omega Centauri, stellar collisions will be infrequent. But the cluster is so old that many thousands of collisions have occurred.
This image's stair-step shape results from the design of the instrument that captured it. The Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2, removed from Hubble in 2009, consisted of four cameras, each of which took a picture of a section of the target. One of instrument's cameras took a magnified view of the section it was observing, to allow study of that section in finer detail. When the images were processed, that magnified section was shrunk down to the same size as the other sections, so that it fit into the image. This creates the odd shape of its images.
For more information, visit: hubblesite.org/contents/news-releases/2001/news-2001-33.html
Credit: NASA and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA);
Acknowledgment: A. Cool (SFSU)