Messier 13 within the constellation of
Hercules is a densely packed cluster of 300,000 stars, a diameter of
145 light-years, at a distance of 25,100 light-years away from Earth.
The stars within this cluster, like all globular clusters, are old
stars tightly bound by gravity giving them their spherical shapes.
M13 can be found south of the 3.5 magnitude star Eta Herculis.
'X' Marks the spot of M13
I have posted about M13 in the past,
but this is my first time viewing it through the 6” telescope. I
could make out some stars around the outer edge of the globular, but
was still not able to resolve any towards the denser central core of
it. I really can't wait to make some comparisons from darker skies
this summer, I have a feeling I will be seeing more detail in objects
that are washed out by the city lights of Plattsburgh. This time I
got a picture, and I did a sketch of M13; should be a good
comparison of what you can see visually, and what a camera can gather
with multiple exposures stacked.
M13, click to enlarge
M13 Sketch through 12.5mm eyepiece, magnification 60x. Click to enlarge.
M13 is 11 images at 30 seconds stacked,
8 dark frames, and 15 bias frames. Taken early morning of April 14,
2012, stacked in Deep Sky Stacker and post processed in Gimp.
Sketch was on a white sketch pad with 2H pencil, 557-6B ex. soft charcoal pencil, and a smudge tool. Image inverted and stars touched up in Gimp.
Comments
just missed out on seeing the meteor shower over here. it was too cloudy :( I know a few people in Qld had a good show of it .