Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Serpens (Ser)  ·  Contains:  M 5  ·  NGC 5904  ·  The star 5Ser
M5 Rose Globular Cluster, Joe Niemeyer
M5 Rose Globular Cluster
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M5 Rose Globular Cluster

M5 Rose Globular Cluster, Joe Niemeyer
M5 Rose Globular Cluster
Powered byPixInsight

M5 Rose Globular Cluster

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Here is my image of the Rose Globular Star Cluster, catalogued as Messier 5, and located in the constellation Serpens Caput, the Snake's Head. I picked this particular object because I think these globular clusters look like fireworks in deep space, greeting us with a perpetual "Happy Independence Day!" Spanning 165 light-years in diameter, M5 is one of the largest globular clusters known and it lies about 25,000 light years from Earth. The Rose Cluster is one of about 150 globular clusters that orbit in the halo of the Milky Way. These clusters contain hundreds of thousands of stars, tightly packed in a symmetrical ball. They are some of the earliest celestial structures, forming just as the Milky Way was forming. M5 is about 13 billion years old, more than twice the age of our solar system, and almost as ancient as the universe itself. The bright star in the lower right is a binary star system named 5 Serpentis. If you look closely, you can see the 2 adjacent stars.

I made this image from a stack of forty 180-second exposures shot at 2310mm focal length, calibrated with 20 each dark, flat, and dark flat frames, then post-processed with DeNoise AI and Photoshop.

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M5 Rose Globular Cluster, Joe Niemeyer