Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Hercules (Her)  ·  Contains:  Great Cluster in Hercules  ·  IC 4615  ·  M 13  ·  NGC 6205  ·  NGC 6207
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M13 - Globular Cluster in Hercules, Hap Griffin
M13 - Globular Cluster in Hercules
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M13 - Globular Cluster in Hercules

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M13 - Globular Cluster in Hercules, Hap Griffin
M13 - Globular Cluster in Hercules
Powered byPixInsight

M13 - Globular Cluster in Hercules

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Description

M13 is a "globular star cluster" in the constellation of Hercules. Often it is imaged at a longer focal length to "zoom in" on the structure, but in this treatment, I show it immersed in a wider field of foreground stars to put it in perspective. Our galaxy is surrounded by a halo of hundreds of these type star clusters which consist of hundreds of thousands to millions of stars gravitationally bound together. M13 has some 300,000 members, is 145 light-years in diameter, and lies at a distance from us of 25,000 light years. The much more distant spiral galaxy NGC 6207 is visible in the upper left of the image. In 1974, a signal encoded with a description of the Earth and humans, along with the mathematical keys for decoding it, was beamed towards M13 in hopes that someday, a civilization on a planet around one of its stars would receive it...of course it would take 25,000 years for the signal to get there, and another 25,000 years for us to receive any possible reply.

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M13 - Globular Cluster in Hercules, Hap Griffin