Not a sophisticated image of the cluster, as this was shot on a Bayer-striped color camera. And this cluster is one of the most distant. But I wanted to try to capture it because the Intergalactic Wanderer has many secrets.

Shot on a poor night. High humidity, Thin cloud waves. I picked a bright target to compensate.

(Description written for non-astro FB friends)

ust who is the Intergalactic Wanderer? It looks like he's having a party and we weren't invited!

This cluster of stars (NGC2419) appears to drift through space, thus its name. But it's actually an extended part of our galaxy. It's held in a tractor-beam like position in an orbit above the Milky Way, 300,00 light years away from Earth. So it's mostly outside and above the galactic disk. As the galaxy rotates, the cluster moves with it, thus appearing to be "wandering" across the field of stars in front and in back of it. It takes three billion years to make one trip around the galaxy.

Turns out there are about 150 such clusters all around the Milky Way. This one is the most distant.

But why are thousands of stars arranged in such a manner?

Scientists think most of these clusters were once dense bubble-like clouds of hydrogen surrounding the Milky Way as it was being formed. The galaxy itself has a super massive black hole in its center that attracts surrounding matter, ejecting outward what it can't absorb. But these clouds don't appear to have such central bodies. It's thought the smaller gaseous masses began to collapse on themselves and hydrogen compacted into dense nuggets, igniting into an incredible number of stars. Once all of the free hydrogen was gone, the stars were left to float in the same position in which they were formed.

These clusters do not get tighter over time...the stars just hang where they are. 

My driveway setup can't begin to show how many stars there really are. Like magic, we can call upon the Hubble telescope to reveal how impressive IGW really is...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NGC_2419...

(Q: If we can get such wonderful images from Hubble and Webb, why do you bother with your inferior rig? A: Because I can.)

Some experts conjecture that a few of these clusters might be leftover nuclear centers of other galaxies absorbed by the Milky Way, their black holes ripped away by the tremendous attraction to the Milky Way's own super-massive black hole.

But, remember, a conjecture ranks lower than a hypothesis, which is lower than a theory, which rests below fact.

Wanderer is chemically a little different than others. It seems to have two types of stars...one more rich in Helium that the other, which is unusual. Looking closely, some stars are yellow, others blue. The stars in other clusters tend to be very similar in composition. 

One of many mysteries that astronomers are trying to solve.

In the meantime, I'm going with the party idea. I wish I could sneak in.

Tonight's notes were compiled to the tune 𝘛𝘪𝘮𝘦 𝘙𝘦𝘮𝘦𝘮𝘣𝘦𝘳𝘦𝘥, by the Bill Evans Trio.