Star Clusters
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The Double Cluster in Perseus - Also designated NGC 884 (left) and NGC 869, these two open clusters are visible to the naked eye in a dark sky and are both about 7500 light-years away. They are relatively young at approximately 31 million years and contain many blue supergiants.
Telescope: Meade 14" LX200GPS @ f/2 with Hyperstar 3 Camera: SBIG ST-8300C Autoguiding: Orion ST-80 with Meade DSI using PHD2 Exposure: 12 X 5 minutes = 1 hr |
Messier 13 (The Great Globular Cluster of Hercules) - M13 is one of the brightest globular clusters in the sky with an apparent magnitude of 5.8, visible to the naked eye on a clear, dark night. It was discovered by Edmund Halley in 1714 and placed by Charles Messier on his list of "nebulae" in 1764. Composed of about 300,000 stars, M13 is about 25,000 light-years from earth and is about 145 light-years in diameter.
Telescope: Meade 8" LX200R @ f/7 with an Astro-Physics 0.67X telecompressor Camera: SBIG ST-8300C Autoguiding: Orion ST-80 with Meade DSI using PHD Exposures: 4 X 15 min = 1 hr. |
Messier 29 - This somewhat colorful open cluster in Cygnus is about 6000 light-years away, though its distance is uncertain because the absorption of light from its stars in unknown. The nebulosity in this image, enhanced by an H-alpha exposure, is DWB 33, a diffuse HII region which was cataloged by Dickel, Wendker and Bieritz in 1968.
Telescope: Meade 8" LX200R @ f/5 with 2" Antares 0.5X reducer Camera: SBIG ST-2000XM Exposures: L = 90 min, R = G = B = 30 min, H-alpha = 60 min binned |
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Messier 46 and NGC 2438 - M46 is a large, bright open cluster and NGC 2438 is a foreground planetary nebula. Both are in Puppis.
Telescope: Meade 14" LX200GPS @ f/7 with Starizona SCT corrector Camera: SBIG ST-8300C Autoguiding: Starlight Xpress OAG with Meade DSI using PHD2 Exposure: 12 X 30 minutes = 6 hrs |
NGC 6704 and Barnard 106, 107 and 110 - This region in the constellation, Scutum, near the center of the Milky Way contains an open cluster on the bottom left, NGC 6704 with many young, hot, blue stars and three Barnard dark nebulae, B106 at the middle right, B107, just above and to the left of B106 and B110 at the top center.
Telescope: Meade 8" LX200R @ f/7 with an Astro-Physics 0.67X telecompressor Camera: SBIG ST-8300C Autoguiding: Starlight Xpress OAG with Meade DSI using PHD2 Exposure: 16 X 15 minutes = 2 hrs |
NGC 6781 and surroundings - This image of a region in the constellation, Cygnus, contains an open cluster, NGC 6871, the group of blue stars near the top, part of another open cluster, Lund 922, the blue stars on the top left, and a dark nebula, Barnard 147, the snake-like dark region near the bottom.
NGC 6871 contains fewer than 50 stars, all about 9 million years old and about 5000 light-years away. It was discovered by Friedrich Georg Wilhelm von Struve in 1825. Its most noticeable feature is a bright pair of double stars. Telescope: Meade 8" LX200R @ f/7 with an Astro-Physics 0.67X telecompressor Camera: SBIG ST-8300C Autoguiding: Starlight Xpress OAG with Meade DSI using PHD2 Exposure: 12 X 15 minutes = 3 hrs |
NGC 6910 - This open cluster of bright stars in Cygnus is known as the Rocking Horse Cluster. It is about 3700 light-years away in the same large gas cloud that contains NGC 6888 (see two images below). There are a number of star clusters that have formed in this region, NGC 6910 and M29 being the brightest.
Telescope: Meade 8" LX200R @ f/5 with 2" Antares 0.5X reducer Camera: SBIG ST-2000XM Exposures: L = 1 hr 30 min, R = G = B = 30 min |
NGC 7129 and NGC 7142 - NGC 7129 is a reflection nebula about 3300 light-years away in Cepheus. It is illuminated by a cluster of young, hot stars. This nebula, though not very prominent at visible wavelengths, is large and bright in the infrared because of dust grains that are heated by the ultraviolet radiation from the cluster and then re-radiate in the infrared. NGC 7142 is an open cluster, also in Cepheus, but whose distance has been difficult to ascertain because of obscuration by a molecular cloud, probably the one surrounding NGC 7129.
Telescope: Meade 14" LX200GPS @ f/2 with Hyperstar 3 Camera: SBIG ST-8300C Autoguiding: Orion ST-80 with Meade DSI using PHD Exposure: 19 X 5 minutes = 1 hrs. 35 min. |
Omega Centauri - This spectacular globular cluster, also designated NGC 5139, is the largest and brightest globular cluster known. It was discovered by Edmund Halley in 1677, though it had been listed in Ptolemy's catalog in the 2nd century A.D. as a star. It is about 16,000 light-years away in the constellation Centaurus, contains several million stars and is approximately 12 billion years old.
Omega Centauri reaches a maximum altitude of 13° (4.3 air masses) at Chiefland, placing it among the tops in a line of pine trees. I shot a number of 5-minute exposures and only used the four that had little evidence of tree shadows. Telescope: Meade 14" LX200GPS @ f/2 with Hyperstar 3 Camera: SBIG ST-8300C Autoguiding: Orion ST-80 with Meade DSI using PHD Exposure: 4 X 5 minutes = 20 min |
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