Messier 13 GLOBULAR CLUSTER IN HERCULES
by Chuck Caramella
Title
Messier 13 GLOBULAR CLUSTER IN HERCULES
Artist
Chuck Caramella
Medium
Photograph - Photography
Description
Photography. Messier 13 (M13), also designated NGC 6205 and sometimes called the Great Globular Cluster in Hercules or the Hercules Globular Cluster, is a globular cluster of about 300,000 stars in the constellation of Hercules. M13 is about 145 light-years in diameter, and it is composed of several hundred thousand stars. Its distance is about 22,200 light years.
A globular cluster is a spherical collection of stars that orbits a galactic core as a satellite. Globular clusters are very tightly bound by gravity, which gives them their spherical shapes and relatively high stellar densities toward their centers. Globular clusters, which are found in the halo of a galaxy, contain considerably more stars and are much older than the less dense galactic, or open clusters, which are found in the disk.
With an apparent magnitude of 5.8, it is barely visible with the naked eye on a very clear night. Its diameter is about 23 arc minutes and it is readily viewable in small telescopes.
(A light year is the distance a photon of light would travel, moving at about 186,000 miles in one second for the duration of one year. Lets see, there are about [ 60/seconds per minute x 60/minutes per hour x 24/hours per day x 365/days per year ... so: 60 x 60 x 24 x 365 = 31536000 seconds in a year. Now multiply 31536000 (seconds per year) x 186000 (miles per second) = 5865696000000 miles a photon travels in one year. We are almost done ... now we must multiply by 22,200 (light years to M13). Thus, M13 is about 130218451200000000 miles away.) Another way to look at it is: the light I captured in this image, left M13 22,200 years ago, arriving in my camera in July of 2014.)
Photographed at a semi-dark sky site near Catalina, Arizona. Celestron C11 with Starizona Hyperstar (effective focal length of 580mm @ f/2.0), ATIK 490EX color camera.
Uploaded
August 22nd, 2014
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