Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Hercules (Her)  ·  Contains:  Hercules Globular Cluster  ·  IC 4617  ·  M 13  ·  NGC 6205
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M13 - Closeup View, Gary Imm
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M13 - Closeup View

Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
M13 - Closeup View, Gary Imm
Powered byPixInsight

M13 - Closeup View

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Description

This showcase mag 5.8 globular cluster object is one of the sky's best globs, located 25,000 light years away in the constellation of Hercules at a declination of 36 degrees. This cluster contains about 300,000 stars and is about 200 light-years in diameter. It is considered to be the finest globular star cluster in the northern half of the heavens.

After posting an image of this same object yesterday captured with my Tak TOA130, I wanted to see how this full frame sensor (ASI 6200MM) camera would work with my C11 EdgeHD. As with that image, the seeing/wind were both poor so the finer details in this image are not great.

It took a few tries to eliminate any tilt in the optical train and to get the camera spacing right. Just 1 mm either way makes a surprising difference in star quality.

This was just a test of this setup - I am not normally a fan of using SCTs to image star clusters. The color and crispness of the stars doesn't match that taken with a refractor in my opinion, as you can see by comparing the two images. But, this setup should capture more details on dim objects.

Because of its large size, the image takes a bit of time to load in full resolution.

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