After a long wait, about 3
months, I was finally able to put together an image of the Hercules Globular
Cluster (M13). Integration time is 4 hours in LRGB. I wish I had more time to
image this target, but the weather would not cooperate. As I write this post it
is cloudy…again. Perhaps, October will bring clear skies?
M13 is a very popular target
for imagers. It’s relatively bright and it’s possible to image even when the
moon is out. M13 is one of the oldest visible objects in the night sky. It has
been estimated to be 12 to 13 billion years old which is close to the age of
the “Big Bang”. I did a little research on the net and found that the cluster
consists of 300,000 stars. How many can you count?
I was planning to image M16,
The Pillars of Creation, but it looks like that will have to wait until next
year. The Elephant Trunk Nebula is a possible next target…we’ll see if the
weather cooperates.
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