M13 (Kirby Collins)

Celestial hemisphere: Northern · Constellation: Hercules (Her) · Contains: Hercules Globular Cluster · IC 4617 · M 13 · NGC 6205 · NGC 6207

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M13

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M13

M13, the Great Cluster in Hercules, was discovered by Edmund Halley (of comet fame) in 1714, who noted it was visible to the naked eye under dark skies. Messier observed it in 1764, but couldn't resolve its individual stars, describing it as "A nebula without a star...it is round & brilliant, the center more brilliant than the edges." Herschel was able to resolve it with his "20-foot" telescope, noting it was "a most beautiful cluster of stars. It is exceedingly compressed in the middle and very rich."

M13 is about 25,000 light years from Earth, and contains over 100,000 stars in a volume perhaps 100 light years across. The density of stars near the center is much higher than in our cosmic neighborhood; in fact they can occasionally collide forming "blue stragglers" that appear much younger than the other stars in the cluster.

I like Burnham's fanciful description of what it would be like to live there:

"The appearance of the heavens from a point within the Hercules Cluster would be a spectacle of incomparable splendor; the heavens would be filled with uncountable numbers of blazing stars which would dwarf our own Sirius and Canopus to insignificance. Many thousands of stars ranging in brilliance between Venus and the full moon would be continually visible, so that there would be no real night at all on a planet in a globular cluster. Inhabitants of such a planet would probably know nothing of other clusters, of the Galaxy, and of the other galaxies, as their view would be completely blocked by the brilliance of their own skies. To them, the Hercules Cluster would be "the Universe.""

Please note: The following tables are updated every 24 hours.

Distribution of astrophotographers

This table shows the number of distinct astrophotographers who have been assigned and IOTD/TP award compared to the total number of images awarded.
	Distinct awarded users	Total awarded images
Image of the day
Top picks
Top pick nominations

Distribution of subject types

This table shows the distribution of awards per subject type, compared to the popularity of images of that subject type.
	Image of the day	Top pick	Top pick nominations	Total submitted
Deep sky
Solar system
Extremely wide field
Star trails
Northern lights
Noctilucent clouds
Landscape

Distribution of data sources

This table shows the distribution of awards per data source, compared to the popularity of images acquired from that data source.
	Image of the day	Top pick	Top pick nominations	Total submitted
Backyard
Traveller
Own remote observatory
Amateur hosting facility
Public amaeteur data
Professional, scientific grade data
Mix of multiple sources
Other
Unknown

The “AstroBin Image of the Day and Top Picks”, or IOTD/TP, is a long-running system to promote beautiful, interesting, peculiar, or otherwise amazing astrophotographs, with a focus on technical excellence. Learn more.

Submitted The date and time when you submitted this image for IOTD/TP consideration.	...
Views by Submitters (available since September 19th, 2023) Every image is assigned to 50% of available Submitters. In the event that at least 80% of them don't view the image before its time in the IOTD/TP process expires, it's assigned to the other 50% of Submitters and the process begins anew.
Promotions by Submitters When 3 distinct Submitters promote the image, it moves on to the next stage of the process: evaluation for Top Pick status. This requirement, in addition to anonymization of images and distribution to only a subset of them, prevents biases and ensures that the best images are selected.
Promotions by Reviewers When 3 distinct Reviewers promote the image, it moves on to the next stage of the process: evaluation for IOTD status.
Early dismissal Staff members have a lot of images to inspect on a daily basis, and they can dismiss images if they believe they don't meet the requirements for IOTD/TP selection. If an image is dismissed 5 times, it's removed from the process. This streamlines the process and ensures that any bias present in promotions could be overruled by other staff members.

Status	Advanced success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	5747052
PixInsight job	80K4LABFEGZDS4Z0ADW9U5FL5VNBHGXC
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	TASK_LOG

RA (center)	16h41m40s.57
RA (top/left)	16h38m46s.96
RA (top/right)	16h39m28s.28
RA (bottom/right)	16h44m31s.84
RA (bottom/left)	16h43m55s.60

Dec (center)	+36°27′17″.9
Dec (top/left)	+37°05′28″.7
Dec (top/right)	+35°43′07″.9
Dec (bottom/right)	+35°48′55″.2
Dec (bottom/left)	+37°11′19″.5

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