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This is Messier 13 - a globular cluster of stars in the constellation of Hercules and probably the best globular cluster in the Northern hemisphere. Its often just known as the "Hercules Cluster"
A small galaxy is seen underneath at about 7 o'clock - IC 4617 and a larger spiral galaxy is seen at the lower left edge - NGC 6207.
M13 is a very, very old collection of stars held together by its own gravity that orbits our Milky Way. This was probably a dwarf galaxy core that lost its periphery to our Milky Way galaxy in the distant past.
Many descriptions on the net state that the brightest star in the cluster is a large variable red star, V11, but it took me quite a while to find an image showing exactly which star that is - Ive marked it in the negative inset.
You are looking at a clump of about 300000 stars in a diameter of 145 light years - imagine what the night sky would look like inside the cluster, given our nearest stellar neighbour is 4.2 LY away.
Most of the stars are extremely old and stable red dwarfs, (about 12 billion years old). Don't expect any young massive stars to go supernovae in this locale.
A few youngish "Blue Stragglers" are seen but essentially these are close binary stars where one partner pulls matter off the other to rejuvenate its nuclear processes and appears to be a young massive blue star.
38 x 6 min exposures from T3 in New Mexico. Dithered and drizzled. Post-processed in PixInsight.
Our galaxy has about 100 globular clusters, the Andromeda galaxy about 370.
You will find more about M13 in some of my previous write-ups in the DSO album here - in particular the "propeller" seen towards the top left and how M13 was accurately drawn and described by astronomers working with "the Leviathan" telescope in Birr Castle, Ireland.
Camera: ZWO ASI533MC
Telescope: Explore Scientific ES152 F/8 APO triplet
Mount: AstroPhysics 1600GTO
12X 90s exposures.
For many years, all of the stars in globular clusters were believed to form in the same stellar nursery and grow old together. The most massive stars exhaust their fuel supply in less than a million years and end their lives in spectacular supernova explosions. This process should have left globular clusters like Caldwell 108 (or NGC 4372) with only old, low-mass stars. However, young, blue stars have been spotted amongst the ancient stars in Caldwell 108 and many other clusters like it. Astronomers think that these stars, called blue stragglers, are a result of collisions between stars or other stellar interactions. Such interactions are not uncommon within densely populated globular clusters, in which up to a few million stars are tightly packed together.
This Hubble image shows a portion of Caldwell 108 centered on the cluster’s core. It combines observations taken in visible, ultraviolet, and infrared light with Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3. This camera uses two detectors that are near but not exactly next to each other, leaving a thin gap in the exposure. This image of Caldwell 108 was taken to prove that a new method of using Hubble’s gyroscopes (developed to extend their lifetime) would still produce the high-quality science observations Hubble is known for.
Caldwell 108 is located 19,000 light-years away in the constellation Musca. It was discovered in 1826 by the Scottish astronomer James Dunlop from his observation post in Australia. The globular cluster can be seen year-round from most of the Southern Hemisphere, but is highest in the late evening during autumn. With an apparent magnitude of 10, it is visible in a small telescope and appears as a large, faint patch just west of the Dark Doodad Nebula, an opaque lane of gas and dust that obscures a portion of the Milky Way. A relatively bright (magnitude 6.5) star shines close to the cluster.
Credit: NASA, ESA, and M. Reinhart (STScI); Processing: Gladys Kober (NASA/Catholic University of America)
For Hubble's Caldwell catalog website and information on how to find these objects in the night sky, visit:
Nikon D70 + 18-70mm f/3.5-4.5G + Hubble Space Telescope image
Bahá'í Temple, Wilmette, IL, 4 Jun 2006
© José Francisco Salgado, PhD
The showpiece globular cluster in the northern hemisphere.
The data for this image was gathered over 2 nights at the end of May 2011.
This was a shot from a bit earlier this year, with the DSLR. Only just got around to processing it. Always wanted to have a go at this with a barlow to get some extra image scale. Tech details below:
Skywatcher MN190 + Moonfish barlow approx x1.9 (so, approx F9/F10)
Mount - EQ6
Canon 450D (Baader mod) + IDAS LPS
QHY5 PHD guiding, guidesope Celestron ED80
RGB
- ISO400 - 20x4mins
- ISO800 - 8x90s
Calibration, stack and DDP in Images Plus
Curves + all other processing PS CS3
Image contains example(s) of:
galaxy formation
galaxies
galaxy clusters
nebulae
interstellar clouds
stars
quasars
a white dwarf
black hole
supernova
globular clusters
stellar stream
This work is fully licensed for commercial and non-commercial activities. Nothing in this image was taken from work created by any other photographer or entity and is in its totality a work by Rennett Stowe.
Messier 92 (also known as M92, M 92, or NGC 6341) is a globular cluster of stars in the northern constellation of Hercules.
Camera: ZWO ASI533MC
Telescope: Explore Scientific ES152 F/8 APO triplet
Mount: AstroPhysics 1600GTO
12X 90s exposures.
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
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.
Nearby in our galaxy, this tight cluster contains upward of 300,000 stars. If we could view the sky from a planet within the cluster, the heavens would appear dazzling. So many brilliant stars would be continually visible that there would be no real night.
Oddly, the faint silhouette of a Mercedes Benz logo appears at the lower right (southeast) of the cluster's center.
M13 lies 22,000 light years distant within our Milky Way.
This image was captured under the dark skies of Santa Fe, New Mexico. Telescope: 12" aperture f/8 with an electrically-cooled CCD single shot color camera.
Caldwell 42, also known as NGC 7006, is one of 18 globular clusters in the Caldwell catalog. If you look at this Hubble image of the cluster closely, you may be able to spot several tiny background galaxies (which appear fuzzier and more extended than the cluster’s stars). Each of those distant island universes likely contains a hundred or more globular clusters of its own. Unlike open star clusters, which are smaller and more loosely bound, globular clusters are densely packed with hundreds of thousands of stars held in a roughly spherical shape by their mutual gravity.
Globular clusters like Caldwell 42 are relics of the galaxy’s earliest years. Since they were born as the nascent galaxy was forming, these clusters provide a glimpse backward in time and provide a hint of what the Milky Way was like billions of years ago. Studying globular clusters allows scientists to learn more about how the first stars formed in our galaxy and the role the clusters played in the galaxy’s development. However, Caldwell 42 has a very elongated orbit around the center of our galaxy, which might hint toward an extragalactic origin. It seems that some globular clusters may have once been independent dwarf galaxies that were later absorbed by the Milky Way.
The cluster is nestled in the diminutive constellation Delphinus and is best viewed in the late summer in the Northern Hemisphere or late winter in the Southern Hemisphere. It was discovered in 1784 by British astronomer William Herschel — the discoverer of dozens of celestial objects in the Caldwell catalog. Caldwell 42 isn’t terribly bright to begin with compared to other star clusters, so at its distance of about 135,000 light-years from Earth it’s really not the most impressive sight to most amateur astronomers. In a moderate-sized telescope, the magnitude-10.5 cluster appears as a dim, circular smudge. It is difficult to pick out individual stars in the cluster, though large amateur telescopes may be able to resolve a few of the cluster’s most vibrant stellar members.
This image, taken by Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys, includes light detected at both visible and infrared wavelengths. When viewed in visible wavelengths alone, Caldwell 42 appears dimmer. This is because intervening dust between us and Caldwell 42 scatters some of the cluster’s visible light but lets the infrared light pass through. Hubble’s multi-wavelength view transforms this otherwise faint smudge into a dazzling spectacle, while helping astronomers analyze the cluster’s stars and investigate Caldwell 42’s history.
For more information about Hubble’s observations of Caldwell 42, see:
www.spacetelescope.org/images/potw1137a/
Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA
For Hubble's Caldwell catalog website and information on how to find these objects in the night sky, visit:
This Hubble image of Caldwell 47 shows a gleaming globular cluster in all of its glory. Star clusters like this one encircle our galaxy like bees buzzing around a hive. Sparsely packed open clusters are often strewn throughout the disk of the galaxy — a relatively flat area that includes most of the galaxy’s contents, including the spiral arms. Globular clusters, however, are typically found in the galaxy’s halo — a diffuse, spherical area that surrounds the heart of the galaxy.
Caldwell 47 is about 50,000 light-years away from Earth, but the combined light of its many thousands of stars calls our attention from halfway across the galaxy. Hubble imaged the cluster here in visible and infrared light, which combines the type of light that we can see (visible) with a kind that can peer through clouds of dust (infrared). Hubble’s observations presented astronomers the opportunity to study some of Caldwell 47’s strangest stellar members — blue stragglers.
Blue straggler stars are so named because they seem to lag behind in the aging process, appearing younger than the rest of the stars they formed with. Astronomers think that blue stragglers might emerge from binary systems — pairs of stars that orbit each other. One possible scenario is when the more massive star of the pair evolves and expands, the smaller star steals material away from its companion. This stirs up hydrogen fuel and causes the growing star to undergo nuclear fusion at a faster rate. It burns hotter and bluer, like a massive young star.
Caldwell 47 was first spied by British astronomer William Herschel in 1785, though he originally thought it was a nebula. Also cataloged as NGC 6934, it is found in the Delphinus constellation and is best viewed in summer night skies in the Northern Hemisphere, or winter skies in the Southern Hemisphere. With a magnitude of 8.8, the cluster can be seen in binoculars, but it will likely appear to be a single star. Through a moderate or large telescope, individual stars can be picked out at the edges of the cluster, with the central region remaining an unresolved haze of stars.
For more information about Hubble’s observations of Caldwell 47, see:
www.spacetelescope.org/images/potw1023a/
Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA
For Hubble's Caldwell catalog website and information on how to find these objects in the night sky, visit:
Here's a shot I snapped of the Messier 15 globular star cluster at Frosty Drew Observatory in Charlestown, Rhode Island, USA. M15, found in the constellation Pegasus, is a super old cluster with an estimated age of 12 billion years old. Residing at 33,600 light years distant, M15 has a diameter of 175 light years. The central region of M15 is super bright due to the extreme density of stars potentially orbiting a super massive black hole.
Photo Details:
Camera: Canon 60D MagicLantern
1370mm
f/9
ISO: 5000
Exposure: 60 seconds * 15 frames.
This is a median composite of 15 individual exposures to reduce noise.
-Scott MacNeill
SBC-1 Globular cluster
Image credit: WANDER Space Probe / Navid Baraty
Big news! I’m excited to announce my new ongoing series of images taken by the WANDER space probe. WANDER (Wormhole Accelerated Nomad Delivering Exploratory Reconnaissance) is on a mission to explore beyond our universe and capture never-before-seen images of what exists in these strange worlds. WANDER travels by tunneling through wormholes, or “shortcuts” through spacetime. The wormholes are created from huge quantities of extremely dense matter in neutron stars and are filled with incredible amounts of negative energy harnessed from the vacuum of space. This negative energy holds the tunnel of the wormhole open long enough to be traversable.
With my technical background and knowledge of photography, I’m honored to have been selected as the lead image processor for the WANDER mission. WANDER uses special electronic detectors to record wavelengths of light throughout the range of the electromagnetic spectrum. This raw image data from WANDER is transmitted to Earth in the form of qubits (quantum bits) at nearly instantaneous speeds via quantum entanglement. My job is to analyze and edit this data to produce finished color images that accurately depict the grandeur of these universes.
On occasion, WANDER will be making observations in our universe as it periodically returns to Earth for routine maintenance.
Follow updates from WANDER on twitter and on facebook.
M4 dominates the centre of this frame, at mag 5.9, Distance from Earth is 7500Lyrs.
Just off the bottom of the frame at 6'oclock Antares 'blooms' and at 10'oclock from there can be seen NGC6144 - Mag 9.1. This cluster however is 33,000Lyrs away
Combination of 10L/3D Pre-Processed in Pixinsight, and Final Processing done in CS6.
The fifth object of the Messier catalog also known as NGC 5904 is a globular cluster in the constellation of Serpens (The Snake’s Head) with an angular size of 21 arcminutes, a magnitude of 7 and 24,500 light years distant from Earth. The bright star in the upper left is 5 Serpentis with a magnitude of 5.03. M5 cover a diameter of approximately 165 light years making it one of the largest globular clusters and it is estimated to be 13 billion years old containing some 100,000 to 500,000 stars. I couldn’t finish taking all the color frames as the portable battery for the CCD ran out of power. North is 4:00.
Taken at Lee, IL on 20150427
Image Type: L
10 x 120 1x1
Hardware:
AstroTech RC 8” with 0.8 reducer/flattener
Orion 400m Short Tube piggy back for guiding
Orion Star-Shooter Auto-guider
QHY9M with filter wheel with Astrodom filters
Software:
EQMOD with Starry Night Pro 7
Nebulosity 3.0.2
CCD Stack
Photoshop CS3
Conditions:
Average clear night with ok transparency and a crescent Moon in the west skies, low temp of 35F.
This image shows a globular star cluster located in the dwarf galaxy Caldwell 17 (or NGC 147). It was imaged by Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) in visible and infrared light.
Credit: NASA, ESA, and H. Bond (Pennsylvania State University); Processing: Gladys Kober (NASA/Catholic University of America)
For Hubble's Caldwell catalog website and information on how to find these objects in the night sky, visit:
Messier 13 Observation - I managed to snag about six minutes of data on M13, globular cluster in the constellation Hercules, before the clouds rolled in. This was more a processing attempt to see what the limiting magnitude was in the image. I did manage to catch NGC 6207, this is a small spiral galaxy about one degree away from M13 and is listed at magnitude 12.1. The galaxy is actually 1200 times farther away that M13. Another object I was surprised to find with a six minute exposure was the galaxy PGC 2085077 (also listed as IC 4617). It only shows up as a small dot on my image, it is listed at magnitude 15.2. That places the limiting magnitude on this image at right around 15.2 (perhaps a bit lower with more research).
PHOTO DETAILS: photographed on May 2, 2014 and includes 4 x 90 second exposures. A Canon T4i and Canon EF400mm f/5.6L USM lens at ISO 800 were used. The camera was mounted on a ZEQ25GT mount from iOptron. Photo's were stacked in DSS, stretched in ImagesPlus and final editing done in Corel PaintshopPro X6 and X5. Image was taken from 40.8978786 N,75.8921584 W.
Messier 26 open star cluster, at right, a bright binocular/telescopic star cluster, along with the fainter and small globular star cluster NGC 6712 at upper left, which itself is paired with the faint planetary nebula IC 1295, the greenish spot left of NGC 6712. All are in the constellation of Scutum, embedded in the rich Scutum Starcloud. The bright red star at top is S Scuti.
This is a stack of 8 x 6 minute exposures at f/4.4 with the Canon 6D at ISO 800 and TMB 92mm Apo refractor with the Borg 0.85x flattener/reducer. Taken from the winter home near Silver City, New Mexico.
Just to finish the night, I dropped the zoom right down to 168mm and took 3 x 300 seconds shots of the Large Magellanic Cloud at F6.3 and 3200ISO. I assumed the influence of the wind would be a lot less annoying and yeah, it looks interesting though close to Christchurch light pollution halo at that time of the night.
On the original photo I can see a bunch of globular clusters, details in the LMC's nebulas, etc …
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:
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:
Subject: M22
-- Left half: 1-minute subexposures
-- Right half: 5-minute subexposures
Image Size: 2800 x 2800 (each half)
Image FOV: 52 minutes by 52 minutes (each half)
Image Scale: 1.11 arc-second/pixel
Date: 2011/05/08 (Processing backlog of old images)
Exposure: Left: 20 x 1 minute, Right: 10 x 5 minutes, ISO1600, f/8
Camera: Unmodified Canon T2i/550D
Lens: Nikon 800mm f/5.6 AI-S, at f/8 (sharpest)
Mount: Astro-Physics AP900
Guiding: ST-402 autoguider through TV-102iis guidescope, Maxim DL autoguiding software
Processing: Raw conversion and calibration with ImagesPlus; Aligning and combining with Registar. Final processing in Photoshop -- levels adjustment, cropping to 2800 x 2800, combining two panels, JPEG conversion, etc.
Remarks: SQM-L reading start/end = 21.58/21.49
Note the better star colors with the 60-second subexposures, but more faint stars with the 5-minute subexposures.
✨ The Hercules Globular Cluster (M13) – Jewel of the North ✨
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Behold M13, the magnificent globular cluster nestled in the constellation Hercules. Home to hundreds of thousands of ancient stars packed into a tight, spherical swarm roughly 22,000 light-years from Earth, this stellar beehive shines at naked-eye limit and bursts into view through binoculars and small telescopes alike.
Gazing upon M13 is like looking back in time—most of its stars were born over 11 billion years ago, long before our Solar System formed. Its densely packed core offers a glimpse into the extremes of stellar evolution, where close encounters and gravitational interactions shape the cluster’s destiny.
📍 Constellation: Hercules
🌌 Distance: 22,000 light-years
✨ Apparent Magnitude: 5.8
📏 Apparent Size: 20 arcminutes
Coordinates: RA 16h 41m 41s | Dec +36° 27′ 36″
Let M13 remind you that even in the darkest reaches of space, ancient light and timeless beauty endure.
Lights: 52x300" (LRGB)
Telescope: Officina Stellare ProRC 700
Camera: FLI PL16803
Filters: LRGB Astrodon
Processed: Pixinsight
Date: 02/04/2021
#HerculesCluster #M13 #GlobularCluster #AncientStars #StellarArchaeology #DeepSky #Astrophotography #NightSky #CosmicWonder #MilkyWayTreasures #SpaceInspiration #StarCluster
One of my first succesful LRGB images is of the globular cluster M3. Taken with a 4" Skywatcher refractor coupled to an Atik 314L+ mono camera. At the time I did not have aguide scope, each filter image was about 30s in length combined in Photoshop. The images were taken on April 10th 2019.
'Messier 3 (M3) is a globular cluster located in the constellation Canes Venatici, the Hunting Dogs.
Messier 3 is one of the brightest, largest globular clusters in the sky. It has an apparent magnitude of 6.2 and is approximately 33,900 light years distant from Earth. It has the designation NGC 5272 in the New General Catalogue.
It has an absolute magnitude of about -8.93 and a luminosity about 300,000 times that of the Sun. The cluster is approaching us at 147.6 km/s.
M3 contains an estimated half a million stars. The brightest stars in the cluster are of magnitude 12.7 and the average brightness of the 25 brightest stars is 14.23 mag.
The overall spectral type of M3 is F2. The cluster has a total mass of about 450,000 solar masses.
Messier 3 can be found halfway from the bright star Arcturus in Boötes constellation to Cor Caroli in Canes Venatici. It lies about 6 degrees north-northeast of Beta Comae Berenices, near the border between the constellations Canes Venatici and Boötes. The best time of year to observe the cluster from northern latitudes is during the months of March, April and May.
Charles Messier on May 3, 1764. It was the 75th deep sky object ever observed at the time of discovery and the first object in the Messier catalogue discovered by Messier himself, who noted:
“On May 3, 1764, when working on a catalog of the nebulae, I have discovered one between Bootes & one of the Hunting Dogs of Hevelius, the southernmore of the two, exactly between the tail & the paws of this Dog, according to the charts of Flamsteed. I have observed that nebula on the meridian, & I compared with Mu Bootis; its right ascension has been found as 202d 51′ 19″, & its declination as 29d 32′ 57″ north. That nebula which I have examined with a Gregorian telescope of 30 pouces focal length, which magnifies 104 times, doesn’t contain any star; the center is brilliant, & the light gets lost fading [outward]; it is round, & could have 3 minutes of arc in diameter. One can see it in a good sky with an ordinary [nonachromatic] refractor of one foot [FL].”
(Read more at: www.messier-objects.com/messier-3/)’
Intermediate age globular cluster in the Large Magellanic Cloud. I tried to guess a little better at what color this thing should be overall instead of going about it in a wholly arbitrary way but it's still just a guess, even though I tried to use some math. I should probably find someone to ask for a clue on this because there must be a way to process things more accurately.
It looks a bit yellowish. If I had done this the way I usually do globular clusters, I would have made the overall color be as close to neutral as possible. Some especially red stars are almost invisible in the blue channel, shining most strongly in the near-infrared wavelength (F814W). There is a small group of blue stars at the lower edge of the frame. A tantalizing spiral galaxy is peeking out from behind a couple of bright stars near the middle right edge of the frame.
Conveniently, three wideband channels of color were available which is invariably more pleasant to look at than a two channel image with an interpolated green channel.
These data were collected by the Hubble Space Telescope as part of Proposal 10595 - A Reference Database for Accurate Ages and Metallicities of Globular Clusters in the Magellanic Clouds
Red: HST_10595_07_ACS_WFC_F814W_sci
Green: HST_10595_07_ACS_WFC_F555W_sci
Blue: HST_10595_07_ACS_WFC_F435W_sci
North is NOT up. It is 37.6° clockwise from up.
Messier 3 (NGC 5272/GCL 25)
Credit: Giuseppe Donatiello (Oria Amateur Astrophysical Observatory - OAAO)
M3 (NGC 5272/GCL 25) is a globular cluster discovered by Charles Messier in 1764 in the constellation Canes Venatici.
This cluster is one of the largest and brightest, being formed by about 500,000 stars. It is located at a distance of about 33,900 light-years.
(127ED@1140mm)
You are looking at an image of the largest globular star cluster in our galaxy. There are an estimated 10 million stars in this cluster, and it is possible that this cluster might have been a part of a separate galaxy that merged with ours.
This is another target that is only visible at my location for about six weeks every spring. It never gets very high in the sky so imaging it can be difficult.
I've taken shots of this in previous years, but this is by far the best one I've taken so far of this amazing object.
Almost immediately, one sees that something is not quite right with Globular Cluster M107. Between us and this ball of tens-of-thousands of stars, is an irregular dark cloud of dust which, like looking at something with a warped mirror, distorts the cluster into ever-changing unrecognizable shapes. M107 is a fine cosmic distortion which dances in the eyepiece.
To see additional astronomy drawings visit: www.orrastrodrawing.com
This is a Hubble Space Telescope photo of the core of globular cluster 47 Tucanae, home to 1 million stars. Multiple photos of this region allowed astronomers to track the "behive swarm" motion of stars. Astronomers determined precise velocities for nearly 15,000 stars in this cluster.
Hubble's study of 47 Tucanae provided astronomers with the best observational evidence to date that globular clusters sort out stars according to their mass, governed by a gravitational billiard-ball game between stars. Heavier stars slow down and sink to the cluster's core, while lighter stars pick up speed and move across the cluster to its periphery.
For more information, visit: hubblesite.org/contents/news-releases/2006/news-2006-33.html
Credit: NASA, ESA and G. Meylan (École Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne)
Medium-size black holes do exist, according to findings from the Hubble Space Telescope. Such intermediate-mass black holes provide an important link that sheds light on the way in which black holes grow.
Oddly, these black holes were found in the cores of glittering, "beehive" swarms of stars called globular star clusters, which orbit our Milky Way and other galaxies.
Globular star clusters contain the oldest stars in the universe. If globular clusters have black holes now, then they most likely had black holes when they originally formed.
For more information, visit: hubblesite.org/contents/news-releases/2002/news-2002-18.html
Credit: NASA and G. Bacon (STScI)
This Hubble image of Caldwell 106 displays a glittery spray of ancient stars that are held together by their mutual gravity. Globular clusters are isolated star cities, home to hundreds of thousands of stars. And like the fast pace of cities, there's plenty of action in these stellar metropolises. The stars are in constant motion, orbiting around the cluster's center. Past observations have shown that the heaviest stars tend to crowd into the “downtown” core area, while lightweight stars reside in the less-populated suburbs.
As mid-sized stars age, they run out of hydrogen, the “fuel” they use in the nuclear process, and the star’s core collapses under its own weight. The star’s outer layers swell outward and cool, with its stellar wind blowing away much of this gas. After the purge, only the stars' bright, superhot cores, called white dwarfs, remain. This weight-loss program causes the now lighter weight white dwarfs to be nudged out of the downtown area through gravitational interactions with heftier stars. At each encounter, the white dwarfs' orbits begin to expand outward from the cluster's packed center.
Until these Hubble observations of Caldwell 106, astronomers had never seen this dynamic conveyor belt in action. This Hubble image, taken in visible, infrared, and ultraviolet light using the Wide Field Camera 3, reveals young white dwarfs amid their leisurely 40-million-year exodus from the bustling center of the cluster.
Also known as 47 Tucanae and NGC 104, this globular cluster is about 16,700 light-years away from Earth toward the southern constellation Tucana. Containing at least half a million stars, the cluster was discovered by Nicolas-Louis de Lacaille in 1751 and is highest above the horizon in the spring from the Southern Hemisphere. The sparkling magnitude-4 stellar collection appears near the Small Magellanic Cloud (a nearby dwarf galaxy) and is the second brightest globular cluster in the sky, visible to the naked eye under dark skies and easily viewed using a pair of binoculars.
For more information about Hubble’s observations of Caldwell 106, see:
hubblesite.org/contents/news-releases/2015/news-2015-16.h...
hubblesite.org/contents/news-releases/2000/news-2000-33.h...
hubblesite.org/contents/news-releases/1994/news-1994-11.html
hubblesite.org/contents/news-releases/2013/news-2013-25.html
hubblesite.org/contents/news-releases/2006/news-2006-33.html
hubblesite.org/contents/news-releases/1997/news-1997-35.html
hubblesite.org/contents/news-releases/1991/news-1991-12.html
Credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage (STScI/AURA)-ESA/Hubble Collaboration; Acknowledgment: J. Mack (STScI) and G. Piotto (University of Padova, Italy)
For Hubble's Caldwell catalog website and information on how to find these objects in the night sky, visit:
The great Hercules cluster is one of the skies more precious jewels. It is in the constellation of Hercules (The Strongman), 5.8th magnitude 25000 ly away and it's estimated to contain 400000 stars spreading over 140 ly.
Image Profile:
Location: Lee, IL
Type: HaLRGB
Frames: HaLRGB 6x120:6x180:6x120:6x120:6x120
Imaging time: 20120727 2308 to 20120728 0021
Hardware:
-Main scope: Orion EON APO 120mm
-Guiding Scope: Orion 80mm Short Tube
-CCD: QHY9M with filter wheel with LRGB Ha
-Other Filters: Baader UV/IR Cut
-Orion Atlas Mount
Imaging Applications:
-Acquiring: Nebulosity Ver. 3.0.2
-Guiding: PHD Ver. 1.11.3
Processing Applications:
-Maxim DL Essentials Ver. 2.0
-Nebulosity Ver. 3.0.2
-Corel PaintShop Pro X4
-Photoshop cs3
Comments: Clear dark skies. Originally most of the frames where taken with as luminosity.
Reprocessed to use the Ha as red and red as blue, manipulated the color levels and applied aggressive stretching while avoiding clipping.
Le Grand Amas d'Hercule, est un amas globulaire situé dans la constellation d'Hercule, à environ 25 100 années-lumière du Soleil
Telescope: Celestron 11
Monture CEM70
Reduc 0.63x
Camera: ASI533MC - 240 x 30s
Traitement Siril + Gimp
M9, a bright globular clsuter of stars near the center of the galaxy, images by Hubble.
Image credit: NASA & ESA
LRGB 4x5min, SBIG STL-1100 & Pentax 105 SDP. Slightly cropped.
This is my own work. If you would like to use the photo please contact me: www.fotografija.astrobobo.net/kontakt/
Edited Hubble Space Telescope image of the globular cluster NGC 6638.
This star-studded image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope shows the heart of the globular cluster NGC 6638 in the constellation Sagittarius. The star-strewn observation highlights the density of stars at the heart of globular clusters, which are stable, tightly bound clusters of tens of thousands to millions of stars. To capture the data in this image, Hubble used two of its cutting-edge astronomical instruments: Wide Field Camera 3 and the Advanced Camera for Surveys. Hubble revolutionised the study of globular clusters, as it is almost impossible to clearly distinguish the stars in globular clusters with ground-based telescopes. The blurring caused by Earth’s atmosphere makes it impossible to tell one star from another, but from Hubble’s location in low Earth orbit the atmosphere no longer poses a problem. As a result, Hubble has been used to study what kind of stars globular clusters are made up of, how they evolve, and the role of gravity in these dense systems. The NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope will further our understanding of globular clusters by peering into those globular clusters that are currently obscured by dust. Webb will predominantly observe at infrared wavelengths, which are less affected by the gas and dust surrounding newborn stars. This will allow astronomers to inspect star clusters that are freshly formed, providing insights into stellar populations before they have a chance to evolve.
Subject: M4 and M44
Image Size: 1000 x 1000 (each half)
Image FOV: 37 minutes by 37 minutes (each half)
Image Scale: 2.22 arc-second/pixel (50% reduced)
Date: 2011/05/07 and 2011/05/08 (Processing backlog of old images)
Exposure: M4: 9 x 5 minutes, M22: 10 x 5 minutes, ISO1600, f/8
Camera: Unmodified Canon T2i/550D
Lens: Nikon 800mm f/5.6 AI-S, at f/8 (sharpest)
Mount: Astro-Physics AP900
Guiding: ST-402 autoguider through TV-102iis guidescope, Maxim DL autoguiding software
Processing: Raw conversion and calibration with ImagesPlus; Aligning and combining with Registar. Final processing in Photoshop -- levels adjustment, cropping to 2000 x 2000, 50% reduction to 1000 x 1000, combining two panels, JPEG conversion, etc.
Remarks: SQM-L reading start/end = 2156/21.61 (M4); 21.58/21.49 (M22)
The focus on M4 appears to be off, resulting in the fuzzy stars.
Messier 89 (M89) is one of eight galaxies in the Virgo cluster of galaxies that the famous French astronomer Charles Messier discovered in 1781. An elliptical galaxy by classification, M89 is one of only a few in this category that appear almost exactly circular. It is located about 50 million light-years away in the constellation Virgo.
M89 contains approximately 100 billion stars and well over 2,000 globular clusters. It was the first galaxy discovered to have an extended envelope, which means that it has a larger region of light surrounding it than other elliptical galaxies, most likely because of its high number of stars and globular clusters. At the center of M89 is a supermassive black hole estimated to have one billion times the mass of our Sun.
This Hubble image features about half the galaxy, with M89’s bright central nucleus at the top right of the image and many of its globular clusters appearing as star-like points of light throughout the field. The exposure also captures a separate edge-on spiral galaxy below M89’s core.
For more information, visit: www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2018/messier-89
Credit: NASA, ESA, STScI, M. Franx (Universiteit Leiden), and S. Faber (University of California, Santa Cruz)
Rough edit of the comet sweeping past a couple globular clusters tonight—M53 above right of the coma and NGC5053 trying to hide in the dust tail. For about 20 minutes, Wupatki National Monument was perfectly dark and clear for imaging and binocular views before moonrise started washing it out.
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Canon 6D Mark II with Canon EF 70-300mm lens at 300mm
12 exposures x 60 sec., f/7.1, ISO 12,800
SkyView Pro Equatorial mount
Messier 3 (aka M3 or NGC 5272) is a globular cluster in the constellation of Canes Venatici. At 34K lights years from Earth, it is about 8 billion years old and contains about 500,000 stars. Nice.
Clusters really ain't my thang - I took this whilst waiting for something interesting to get into position (i.e Cygnus). It's not in a great position for my unguided kit, particularly being a cluster, so I had to ditch almost half the subs I took, resulting in 31 minutes total exposure. Nice to see a fuzzy in the top right - NGC 5263 apparently :)
SW 200p, EQ5 unguided
Nikon D70 modded, iso1600, Baader MPCC and Neodymiun filter
31 x 60sec
darks, bias and flats.
Stacked in DSS and processed in CS5