Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Coma Berenices (Com)  ·  Contains:  M 53  ·  NGC 5024  ·  NGC 5053
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M53 and NGC 5053, Alan Howell
M53 and NGC 5053
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Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
M53 and NGC 5053, Alan Howell
M53 and NGC 5053
Powered byPixInsight

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Description

I photographed this dual star cluster image the other night. I found this region of the night sky particularly beautiful with star clusters, M53 and NGC 5053, and other asterisms being so close together.
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Discovered by the German astronomer Johann Elert Bode in 1775, M53 is 59,700 light-years away, one of the most distant globular star clusters from Earth, and can be seen through a small telescope in the constellation Coma Berenices.

Walter Scott Houston wrote of the globular cluster NGC 5053, "In large instruments, it is a little gem of woven fairy fire." This globular was apparently discovered by William Herschel on March 14th of 1784. A most unusual globular cluster, its stars are spread loosely and irregularly, appearing more like an open star cluster than a usual tightly packed globular cluster.

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M53 and NGC 5053, Alan Howell