Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Hercules (Her)  ·  Contains:  Hercules Globular Cluster  ·  IC 4617  ·  M 13  ·  NGC 6205
M13 Hercules Globular Star Cluster, Joe Niemeyer
M13 Hercules Globular Star Cluster
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M13 Hercules Globular Star Cluster

M13 Hercules Globular Star Cluster, Joe Niemeyer
M13 Hercules Globular Star Cluster
Powered byPixInsight

M13 Hercules Globular Star Cluster

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Description

This was my first attempt to image a deep sky object through my telescope. This is the Hercules Globular Star Cluster, also known as M13, a collection of several hundred thousand stars that is over 22,000 light years from Earth. Its stars are tightly bound by gravity, which gives the cluster its spherical shape. The stars are so closely packed together that they frequently collide and produce new blue stars, which you can see if you zoom in. The Hercules cluster is 1 of about 150 globular clusters that orbit in the halo of the Milky Way. You can see this cluster in the West-northwest night sky in September with a good pair of binoculars. Between the clouds and smoke through the summer of 2020, it was challenging to get good nights for astronomical viewing and imaging! This image is a stack of 12 30-second exposures calibrated with 20 flat frames, 10 dark frames, and 10 bias frames and then post-processed in Photoshop with the help of the Astronomy Tools plugin.

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M13 Hercules Globular Star Cluster, Joe Niemeyer