Category: star cluster
Star clusters are regions where stars are gravitationally bound together.
Messier 11 (RGB)
This is Messier 11, aka The Wild Duck Cluster and some surrounding dark nebulae. The popular name comes not from the cluster being duck shaped but because the brighter stars form a “V” shape that looks like ducks flying in formation. However, that sure isn’t obvious in this image and I’ve never noticed it visually….
Collinder 350 (RGB)
Collinder 350 is a fairly unimpressive looking open cluster in Ophiuchus. There isn’t a lot to say about it. It’s part of a catalog of open clusters published by Swedish astronomer Per Collinder in 1931. I chose it because it made a good filter target during the early part of the night when the moon…
Messier 13 (LRGB)
Messier 13 is one of the jewels of the northern sky. It’s a globular cluster in Hercules and if you are an amateur astronomer who has access to that part of the sky, it’s one of the first deep sky objects you saw through a telescope if that happened in the late spring through summer….
Messier 10 (RGB)
There are a lot of globular clusters out there and this one looks a lot like the typical globular. But, they make good “filler” targets because they don’t need much total time and they are still interesting. In this case, I was spending most of the night on Sharpless 112 but it didn’t get high…
Messier 5 (LRGB)
No, this isn’t a repeat of M92. We’ve shifted 87 down the Messier catalog to another globular, This time we’re in the constellation of Serpens, near the celestial equator so much farther south than M92. This cluster is about 24,500 light years away ind is about ⅔ the diameter of the full moon. It is…
Messier 92 (RGB)
This is the globular cluster in Hercules that isn’t M13. Actually to be fair, there are others but this is the only other globular in the Messier catalog that is in Hercules. This one gets a lot less attention from amateurs than its more famous cousin but it is still worth a peek. The cluster…
Linda's Astronomy Adventures 