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Edited Hubble Space Telescope image of the globular cluster NGC 1898 in the Large Magellanic Cloud. Color/processing variant.
Original caption: This glittering ball of stars is the globular cluster NGC 1898, which lies towards the centre of the Large Magellanic Cloud — one of our closest cosmic neighbours. The Large Magellanic Cloud is a dwarf galaxy that hosts an extremely rich population of star clusters, making it an ideal laboratory for investigating star formation. Discovered in November 1834 by British astronomer John Herschel, NGC 1898 has been scrutinised numerous times by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. Today we know that globular clusters belong to the oldest known objects in the Universe and that they are relics of the first epochs of galaxy formation. While we already have a pretty good picture on the globular clusters of the Milky Way — still with many unanswered questions — our studies on globular clusters in nearby dwarf galaxies just started. The observations of NGC 1898 will help to determine if their properties are similar to the ones found in the Milky Way, or if they have different features, due to being in a different cosmic environment. This image was taken by Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) and Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3). The WFC3 observes light ranging from near-infrared to near-ultraviolet wavelengths, while the ACS explores the near-infrared to the ultraviolet.
Edited Hubble Space Telescope image of the globular cluster Messier 54, which orbits the nearby Sagittarius Dwarf Galaxy. Inverted grayscale variant.
Original caption: The object shown in this beautiful Hubble image, dubbed Messier 54, could be just another globular cluster, but this dense and faint group of stars was in fact the first globular cluster found that is outside our galaxy. Discovered by the famous astronomer Charles Messier in 1778, Messier 54 belongs to a satellite of the Milky Way called the Sagittarius Dwarf Elliptical Galaxy. Messier had no idea of the significance of his discovery at the time, and it wasn’t until over two centuries later, in 1994, that astronomers found Messier 54 to be part of the miniature galaxy and not our own. Current estimates indicate that the Sagittarius dwarf, and hence the cluster, is situated almost 90 000 light-years away — more than three times as far from the centre of our galaxy than the Solar System. Ironically, even though this globular cluster is now understood to lie outside the Milky Way, it will actually become part of it in the future. The strong gravitational pull of our galaxy is slowly engulfing the Sagittarius dwarf, which will eventually merge with the Milky Way creating one much larger galaxy. This picture is a composite created by combining images taken with the Wide Field Channel of Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys. Light that passed through a yellow-orange (F606W) was coloured blue and light passing through a near-infrared filter (F814W) was coloured red. The total exposure times were 3460 s and 3560 s, respectively and the field of view is approximately 3.4 by 3.4 arcminutes.
Edited Hubble Space Telescope image of the globular cluster Messier 2, one of the largest in (and around) the Milky Way Galaxy. Color/processing variant.
Original caption: Star clusters are commonly featured in cosmic photoshoots, and are also well-loved by the keen eye of the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. These large gatherings of celestial gems are striking sights — and the subject of this Picture of the Week, Messier 2, is certainly no exception. Messier 2 is located in the constellation of Aquarius (The Water-Bearer), about 55 000 light-years away. It is a globular cluster, a spherical group of stars all tightly bound together by gravity. With a diameter of roughly 175 light-years, a population of 150 000 stars, and an age of 13 billion years, Messier 2 is one of the largest clusters of its kind and one of the oldest associated with the Milky Way. This Hubble image of Messier 2’s core was created using visible and infrared light. Most of the cluster’s mass is concentrated at its centre, with shimmering streams of stars extending outwards into space. It is bright enough that it can even be seen with the naked eye when observing conditions are extremely good.
Edited Hubble Space Telescope image of the globular cluster NGC 6441. Inverted color variant.
Almost like snowflakes, the stars of the globular cluster NGC 6441 sparkle peacefully in the night sky, about 13 000 light-years from the Milky Way’s galactic centre. Like snowflakes, the exact number of stars in such a cluster is difficult to discern. It is estimated that together the stars weigh 1.6 million times the mass of the Sun, making NGC 6441 one of the most massive and luminous globular clusters in the Milky Way. NGC 6441 is host to four pulsars that each complete a single rotation in a few milliseconds. Also hidden within this cluster is JaFu 2, a planetary nebula. Despite its name, this has little to do with planets. A phase in the evolution of intermediate-mass stars, planetary nebulae last for only a few tens of thousands of years, the blink of an eye on astronomical timescales. There are about 150 known globular clusters in the Milky Way. Globular clusters contain some of the first stars to be produced in a galaxy, but the details of their origins and evolution still elude astronomers.
Edited Hubble Space Telescope (reprocessed - I uploaded a version of this image last fall) of the globular cluster NGC 1898 in the Large Magellanic Cloud. Color/processing variant.
Original caption: This glittering ball of stars is the globular cluster NGC 1898, which lies towards the centre of the Large Magellanic Cloud — one of our closest cosmic neighbours. The Large Magellanic Cloud is a dwarf galaxy that hosts an extremely rich population of star clusters, making it an ideal laboratory for investigating star formation. Discovered in November 1834 by British astronomer John Herschel, NGC 1898 has been scrutinised numerous times by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. Today we know that globular clusters belong to the oldest known objects in the Universe and that they are relics of the first epochs of galaxy formation. While we already have a pretty good picture on the globular clusters of the Milky Way — still with many unanswered questions — our studies on globular clusters in nearby dwarf galaxies just started. The observations of NGC 1898 will help to determine if their properties are similar to the ones found in the Milky Way, or if they have different features, due to being in a different cosmic environment. This image was taken by Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) and Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3). The WFC3 observes light ranging from near-infrared to near-ultraviolet wavelengths, while the ACS explores the near-infrared to the ultraviolet.
Messier 15 taken using a 12.5 inch f/9 RCOS Ritchey-Chrétien telescope with an SBIG ST10XME and AO7. The image is a combination of 50 - 1 minute exposures.
More information at SEDS.org
Photo taken using a Nikon D40 attached to Skywatcher ED80 refractor. Exposure is of 14min 12s. Composite image, no dark frames. No autoguiding was used during the taking of the images. Processing was done using DeepSky Stacker and GIMP.
Globular Cluster (M15)
A composite of 31xL 15xR 14xG 14xB fifteen second exposures thru my Meade LX200 telescope using my Meade DSI Pro imager. The individual captures were calibrated using bias frames, dark frames and flat frames and then stacked and processed using Stark Labs' nebulosity and Adobe's Photoshop software. The telescope was guided during the exposures by an Orion 80mm Short Tube telescope with a Meade DSI imager driven by Stark Lab's PHD autoguiding software. All light frames were taken through a set of Meade LRGB CCD filters. Light frames were imaged on October 3, 2008 between 10:22 AM and 11:15 AM near Ellenville, NY. The total exposure was 18 minutes.
M71 is a loose globular cluster in the Sagitta Constellation. It is about 12,000 light years away in our galaxy. This picture was taken October 8, 2007 by Doug Spalding near Butler, MO. Equipment used was a CGE1100 telescope equipped with Hyperstar (F/2) with an Orion DSCI II imager. 25 images X 40 sec each. Stacked with Maxim DL essentials.
M2 captured on 01/10/2016.
Stack of 25 out of 80 10s ISO 400 shots taken with my new EOS100D at prime focus of my 100/900 ED refractor.
Stacked with Deep Sky Stacker, processed with Gimp
Taken with my Celestron EdgeHD 9.25" at prime focus with a Canon 450D. Total exposure time was 22mins.
Messier 22 - Globular Cluster in Sagittarius
One of the finer globular clusters to observe. Visible to the naked eye, good under binoculars, and a small scope resolves individual stars
Location: Tg Sedili, Malaysia
Telescope: Celestron 8" Nexstar SCT
Mount: CG-5 (German Equatorial)
Camera: Nikon D5000
Exposure: about 5 min
Iso-speed: ISO-3200
f-stop: f/6.3 (with focal reducer)
Edited Hubble Space Telescope image of the globular cluster NGC 2419. Color/processing variant.
Original caption: Globular clusters like NGC 2419, visible in this image taken with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, are not only beautiful, but also fascinating. They are spherical groups of stars which orbit the centre of a galaxy; in the case of NGC 2419, that galaxy is the Milky Way. NGC 2419 can be found around 300 000 light-years from the Solar System, in the constellation Lynx (the Lynx). The stars populating globular clusters are very similar to one another, with similar properties such as metallicity. The similarity of these stellar doppelgängers is due to their formation early in the history of the galaxy. As the stars in a globular cluster all formed at around the same time, they tend to display reasonably homogeneous properties. It was believed that this similarity also extended to the stellar helium content; that is, it was thought that all stars in a globular cluster would contain comparable amounts of helium. However, Hubble’s observations of NGC 2419 have shown that this is not always the case. This surprising globular cluster turns out to be made up of two separate populations of red giant stars, one of which is unusually helium-rich. Other elements within the different stars in NGC 2419 vary too — nitrogen in particular. On top of this, these helium-rich stars were found to be predominantly in the centre of the globular cluster, and to be rotating. These observations have raised questions about the formation of globular clusters; did these two drastically different groups of stars form together? Or did this globular cluster come into being by a different route entirely?
First go at long exposure astrophotography at prime focus with a modified Philips SPC880NC (flashed to SPC900NC) webcam.
5 second exposures because my scope wasn't aligned properly. Perhaps half a dozen frames stacked with Registax, then manipulated in GIMP.
Telescope is a SkyWatcher Explorer 130PM f/5 Newtonian.
Edited European Southern Observatory image of part of the star cluster Terzan 5.
Original caption: Peering through the thick dust clouds of the galactic bulge an international team of astronomers has revealed the unusual mix of stars in the stellar cluster known as Terzan 5. The new results indicate that Terzan 5 is in fact one of the bulge's primordial building blocks, most likely the relic of the very early days of the Milky Way. This picture is from the Multi-Conjugate Adaptive Optics Demonstrator (MAD), a prototype adaptive optics system used to demonstrate the feasibility of different techniques in the framework of the E-ELT and the second generation VLT Instruments. The star colours are from the Hubble image of the same star field.
Edited Hubble Space Telescope image of the globular cluster NGC 2419. Color/processing variant.
Original caption: Globular clusters like NGC 2419, visible in this image taken with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, are not only beautiful, but also fascinating. They are spherical groups of stars which orbit the centre of a galaxy; in the case of NGC 2419, that galaxy is the Milky Way. NGC 2419 can be found around 300 000 light-years from the Solar System, in the constellation Lynx (the Lynx). The stars populating globular clusters are very similar to one another, with similar properties such as metallicity. The similarity of these stellar doppelgängers is due to their formation early in the history of the galaxy. As the stars in a globular cluster all formed at around the same time, they tend to display reasonably homogeneous properties. It was believed that this similarity also extended to the stellar helium content; that is, it was thought that all stars in a globular cluster would contain comparable amounts of helium. However, Hubble’s observations of NGC 2419 have shown that this is not always the case. This surprising globular cluster turns out to be made up of two separate populations of red giant stars, one of which is unusually helium-rich. Other elements within the different stars in NGC 2419 vary too — nitrogen in particular. On top of this, these helium-rich stars were found to be predominantly in the centre of the globular cluster, and to be rotating. These observations have raised questions about the formation of globular clusters; did these two drastically different groups of stars form together? Or did this globular cluster come into being by a different route entirely?
The Globular Cluster M72 is to the right of the frame, above center. The Asterism M73, consisting of four closely spaced stars, is to the left of the frame, below center.
Equipment: Nikon D5300, Tamron SP 70-300mm f/4-5.6 Di VC USD lens, and iOptron Skytracker. Taken at 300mm, f/8.0, ISO 12800, 61 frames of 30 seconds each plus 30 darks. Stacked in Regim and cropped/processed in Lightroom.
My favorite souvenir of our trip to Las Vegas. This was our Las Vegas night life: we headed up Mt. Charleston, about twenty five miles out of town.
We set up on a scenic pull-off. Our travel scope, a William Optics Zenithstar 66 on an Astrotech Voyager mount, was quick to set up. We rapidly caught Centaurus A, the weird cannibal galaxy with its victim's dust lane across its face. Once we found it, though, it was pretty obvious we couldn't see Om Cent from where we were due to a mountain ridge in the way - these objects do not get very high in the sky at 36 degrees N. We did some disappointed quickie observing for another half hour, but it was late and the next morning would be early.
Coming down the mountainside, though, we realized that Centaurus was well above the horizon, and that Om Cent should be easy pickings. The beauty of a grab-and-go scope is that it's no hassle to stop and set up - in five minutes, we were back in action and observing the best of all globular clusters observable from the US.
Omega Centauri is a massive cluster visually - I compared it directly to M13, flipping back and forth between them, and it seemed about four times the area and at least twice as bright. Due to the horizon effect, it didn't resolve into individual stars as well as the last time we saw it, but it was very impressive nonetheless.
We tried a number of different eyepieces with it, but my favorite view was my reliable 25mm Plossl with a 2x barlow. This allowed the mountainside with its vegetation into the image, which was such a striking picture that I sketched it as soon as we got back to the hotel room. Observing in the flatlands here, one rarely gets a view like this.
Edited Hubble Space Telescope image of the globular cluster NGC 1898 in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way. (I liked the original title and so left it unchanged.)
Original caption: This glittering ball of stars is the globular cluster NGC 1898, which lies towards the centre of the Large Magellanic Cloud — one of our closest cosmic neighbours. The Large Magellanic Cloud is a dwarf galaxy that hosts an extremely rich population of star clusters, making it an ideal laboratory for investigating star formation. Discovered in November 1834 by British astronomer John Herschel, NGC 1898 has been scrutinised numerous times by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. Today we know that globular clusters belong to the oldest known objects in the Universe and that they are relics of the first epochs of galaxy formation. While we already have a pretty good picture on the globular clusters of the Milky Way — still with many unanswered questions — our studies on globular clusters in nearby dwarf galaxies just started. The observations of NGC 1898 will help to determine if their properties are similar to the ones found in the Milky Way, or if they have different features, due to being in a different cosmic environment. This image was taken by Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) and Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3). The WFC3 observes light ranging from near-infrared to near-ultraviolet wavelengths, while the ACS explores the near-infrared to the ultraviolet.
LRGB composition of data taken last year with equipment I no longer own but processed with tools and techniques acquired very recently.
The current set-up has been plagued with a strange optical artifact, so it was a pleasure to find data for this marvelous globular cluster stored from last year and give a go at processing it.
Image taken from Gulburn Australia at the Magellan Observatory. The great Omega Centarus globular cluster (NGC5139). One of my favorite images. Note the tiny galaxy in the upper left corner.
Exposure:
Single Image.
Equipment:
Canon Rebel XT body - IR modified
MN74 Mak Newt Telescope
EM200 mount
No guiding
Edited Hubble Space Telescope image of the globular cluster M75. Inverted grayscale variant.
This sparkling burst of stars is Messier 75. It is a globular cluster: a spherical collection of stars bound together by gravity. Clusters like this orbit around galaxies and typically reside in their outer and less-crowded areas, gathering to form dense communities in the galactic suburbs. Messier 75 lies in the constellation of Sagittarius (The Archer), around 67 000 light-years away from Earth. The majority of the cluster’s stars, about 400 000 intotal, are found in its core; it is one of the most densely populated clusters ever found, with a phenomenal luminosity of some 180 000 times that of the Sun. No wonder it photographs so well! Discovered in 1780 by Pierre Méchain, Messier 75 was also observed by Charles Messier and added to his catalogue later that year. This image of Messier 75 was captured by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope’s Advanced Camera for Surveys.
Messier 04
Stack Size:30
Exposure: 45s
ISO: 6400
Lens: 8in SCT with f6.3 Focal Reducer
Camera: Canon Rebel T7i with Astro Mod
Another attempt as using my DSLR. This is an image of M15, a globular cluster in Pegasus.
Camera: Canon Rebel XT
Telescope: Celestron Ultima 8 PEC
Exposure: 2x30 seconds images, ISO 100.
Images combined using MaxDSLR and Photoshop for processing.
Messier 05
Stack Size:30
Exposure: 45s
ISO: 6400
Lens: 8in SCT with f6.3 Focal Reducer
Camera: Canon Rebel T7i with Astro Mod
Hercules's 'other' globular, after the more famous M13.
Canon EOS 40D & Celestron C8 telescope.
Manually guided off-axis for 9 x 10 & 1 x 5-minute exposures at f10, ISO 1600. Sub-exposures registered and stacked using DeepSkyStacker software.
Edited Hubble Space Telescope image of the globular cluster NGC 6441. Inverted grayscale variant.
Almost like snowflakes, the stars of the globular cluster NGC 6441 sparkle peacefully in the night sky, about 13 000 light-years from the Milky Way’s galactic centre. Like snowflakes, the exact number of stars in such a cluster is difficult to discern. It is estimated that together the stars weigh 1.6 million times the mass of the Sun, making NGC 6441 one of the most massive and luminous globular clusters in the Milky Way. NGC 6441 is host to four pulsars that each complete a single rotation in a few milliseconds. Also hidden within this cluster is JaFu 2, a planetary nebula. Despite its name, this has little to do with planets. A phase in the evolution of intermediate-mass stars, planetary nebulae last for only a few tens of thousands of years, the blink of an eye on astronomical timescales. There are about 150 known globular clusters in the Milky Way. Globular clusters contain some of the first stars to be produced in a galaxy, but the details of their origins and evolution still elude astronomers.
Taken with my D90 and a 200mm reflector. About 90 x 20 sec exposures. First attempt at a deep sky object and I'm rather pleased with it :)
Edited Hubble Space Telescope image of the globular cluster NGC 1866. Color/processing variant.
Original caption: Star clusters are common structures throughout the Universe, each made up of hundreds of thousands of stars all bound together by gravity. This star-filled image, taken with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope’s Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3), shows one of them: NGC 1866. NGC 1866 is found at the very edges of the Large Magellanic Cloud, a small galaxy located near to the Milky Way. The cluster was discovered in 1826 by Scottish astronomer James Dunlop, who catalogued thousands of stars and deep-sky objects during his career. However, NGC 1866 is no ordinary cluster. It is a surprisingly young globular cluster situated close enough to us that its stars can be studied individually — no mean feat given the mammoth distances involved in studying the cosmos! There is still debate over how globular clusters form, but observations such as this have revealed that most of their stars are old and have a low metallicity. In astronomy, ‘metals’ are any elements other than hydrogen and helium; since stars form heavier elements within their core as they carry out nuclear fusion throughout their lifetimes, a low metallicity indicates that a star is very old, as the material from which it formed was not enriched with many heavy elements. It’s possible that the stars within globular clusters are so old that they were actually some of the very first to form after the Big Bang. In the case of NGC 1866, though, not all stars are the same. Different populations, or generations, of stars are thought to coexist within the cluster. Once the first generation of stars formed, the cluster may have encountered a giant gas cloud that sparked a new wave of star formation and gave rise to a second, younger, generation of stars — explaining why it seems surprisingly youthful.
Lights 20 x 60s f/5 ISO 400
Darks 30 x
Bias 99 x
No flats
Imaging: Canon 50D on Skywatcher equinox 80mm with Televue TRF-2008 Reducer/Flattener
Guiding: Orion Starshoot on Skywatcher 80mm f/5 refractor.
You can really notice the difference in noise between 20 lights an 50 in the m13 shot.
Messier 10
Stack Size:28
Exposure: 45s
ISO: 6400
Lens: 8in SCT with f6.3 Focal Reducer
Camera: Canon Rebel T7i with Astro Mod
Messier 68
Stack Size:28
Exposure: 45s
ISO: 6400
Lens: 8in SCT with f6.3 Focal Reducer
Camera: Canon Rebel T7i with Astro Mod
Camera: Meade DSI Color II
Exposure: 45m (45 x 30s) RGB + (45 x 30s)L
Focus Method: Prime focus
Telescope Aperature/Focal Length: 203×812mm
Mount: LXD75
Telescope: Meade 8" Schmidt-Newtonian
Guided: None
Stacked: DeepSkyStacker
Adjustments: cropped/leveled in Photoshop
Location: Flintstone, GA
Another M13 image, higher resolution image than the one from 2011. Astro-Physics 305RHA, QSI-538wsg camera.
Edited Hubble Space Telescope image of the globular cluster NGC 6558. Color/processing variant.
Original caption: This glittering gathering of stars is the globular cluster NGC 6558, and it was captured by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescopeâs Advanced Camera for Surveys. NGC 6558 is closer to the centre of the Milky Way than Earth is, and lies about 23 000 light years away in the constellation Sagittarius. Globular clusters like NGC 6558 are tightly bound collections of tens of thousands to millions of stars, and they can be found in a wide range of galaxies. As this observation shows, the stars in globular clusters can be densely packed; this image is thronged with stars in a rich variety of hues. Some of the brightest inhabitants of this globular cluster are surrounded by prominent diffraction spikes, which are imaging artefacts caused by starlight interacting with the inner workings of Hubble. Globular clusters equip astronomers with interesting natural laboratories in which to test their theories, as all the stars in a globular cluster formed at approximately the same time with similar initial composition. These stellar clusters therefore provide unique insights into how different stars evolve under similar conditions. This image comes from a set of observations investigating globular clusters in the inner Milky Way. Astronomers were interested in studying these globular clusters to gain greater insight into how globular clusters in the inner Milky Way form and evolve.