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Messier 5, rflinn68

Messier 5

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Messier 5, rflinn68

Messier 5

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Acquisition details

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Description

Messier 5 or M5 (also designated NGC 5904) is a globular cluster in the constellation Serpens. Under extremely good conditions it is just visible to the naked eye as a faint "star" near the star 5 Serpentis. Binoculars or small telescopes will identify the object as non-stellar while larger telescopes will show some individual stars.

Spanning 165 light-years in diameter, M5 is one of the largest known globular clusters. The gravitational sphere of influence of M5, (i.e. the volume of space in which stars are gravitationally bound to it rather than being torn away by the Milky Way's gravitational pull) has a radius of some 200 light-years.

At 13 billion years old, M5 is also one of the eldest globular clusters in the Milky Way Galaxy. Its distance is about 24,500 light-years from Earth, and it contains more than 100,000 stars, as many as 500,000 according to some estimates.--Wiki

This was a secondary target of mine that was forgotten about at least twice. I finished up some data with the Red filter on May 7th and almost forgot about it again. Its a little bit hard for me to believe that I have never done this cluster before. I never knew there were so many background galaxies in this area. Revision B is annotated.

Rev. D....Core was slightly green (thanks Jeff). Ran SCNR (green) at 0.50 strength.

Comments

Revisions

  • Messier 5, rflinn68
    Original
  • Messier 5, rflinn68
    B
  • Messier 5, rflinn68
    C
  • Messier 5, rflinn68
    D
  • Final
    Messier 5, rflinn68
    E

Histogram

Messier 5, rflinn68