Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Coma Berenices (Com)  ·  Contains:  HD114881  ·  IC 858  ·  IC 859  ·  M 53  ·  NGC 5024  ·  NGC 5053  ·  PGC 1527870  ·  PGC 1528517  ·  PGC 1531063  ·  PGC 1534110  ·  PGC 1535602  ·  PGC 1536788  ·  PGC 1537422  ·  PGC 1538075  ·  PGC 1539843  ·  PGC 1541184  ·  PGC 1541240  ·  PGC 1542323  ·  PGC 1543643  ·  PGC 1543739  ·  PGC 1544066  ·  PGC 1544588  ·  PGC 1546660  ·  PGC 1547827  ·  PGC 1547991  ·  PGC 1549781  ·  PGC 1550234  ·  PGC 1550959  ·  PGC 1552836  ·  PGC 1553231  ·  And 18 more.
M53 & NGC5053 (2023), Kurt Zeppetello
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M53 & NGC5053 (2023)

M53 & NGC5053 (2023), Kurt Zeppetello
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M53 & NGC5053 (2023)

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Description

M53 (also known as NGC 5024) is a globular cluster located in the constellation of Coma Berenices. It is approximately 60,000 light-years away from us and ironically the same distance away from the center of the Milky Way. The metal poor cluster is dominated by blue and yellow stars. Metal-poor clusters are composed mostly of first generation stars (stars that are still burning their original light elements such as hydrogen and helium). The other feature in this image is NGC 5023, also a metal-poor globular cluster but much more diffuse. It is very close to M53 and is believed to have interacted with it in the past.

The other stars in this field of view are quite colorful. Located in the upper right corner is the very far spiral galaxy IC 857 along with some other interacting galaxies (IC 858 and IC 859) just below.

I find processing globular clusters particularly difficult but they are fun to do anyway. Capturing this object was pretty interesting as the sky conditions have been particularly iffy due to Canadian wildfires. First there were the Alberta fires which were affecting the transparency when some of this data was collected so I had to trash some of the data. Most recently we have been dealing with actual smoke from much closer wildfires in Quebec - the smell is pretty bad but the red sun at noon looks pretty cool.

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