The Great Hercules Cluster
Image details:
Globular clusters are vast swarms of ancient stars that inhabit the halo of our galaxy, outside of the main disk where most of the stars (and the Earth) reside. They can contain anywhere from ten thousand to a million stars. These stars orbit the collective center of mass of the cluster in a veritable bee hive of motion, and the cluster itself orbits the Milky Way as a distinct object, occasionally plunging right through the main disk and out the other side. Although the cluster appears extremely dense, the distance between individual stars is actually quite large. As a result, stars within them rarely collide, and in the main globular clusters survive relatively unscathed by their passage through the galaxy's disk
Technical details:
Optics: 8" Schmidt Cassegrain
Mount: Celestron AVX.
Camera: Canon 60D prime focused
Guiding: Orion starshoot auto guider 60mm guide scope
Date: July10-2016
Location: taken at my Backyard Country Observatory in Dekalb County Missouri
Exposure details: 9 x180sec ISO-1000 RAW
Processing: Images plus (TRNT, Combined adtive add, Brightness contrast) Photoshop cs5 ( screen mask invert technique, color balance, levels, Highpass filter)
Globular clusters are vast swarms of ancient stars that inhabit the halo of our galaxy, outside of the main disk where most of the stars (and the Earth) reside. They can contain anywhere from ten thousand to a million stars. These stars orbit the collective center of mass of the cluster in a veritable bee hive of motion, and the cluster itself orbits the Milky Way as a distinct object, occasionally plunging right through the main disk and out the other side. Although the cluster appears extremely dense, the distance between individual stars is actually quite large. As a result, stars within them rarely collide, and in the main globular clusters survive relatively unscathed by their passage through the galaxy's disk
Technical details:
Optics: 8" Schmidt Cassegrain
Mount: Celestron AVX.
Camera: Canon 60D prime focused
Guiding: Orion starshoot auto guider 60mm guide scope
Date: July10-2016
Location: taken at my Backyard Country Observatory in Dekalb County Missouri
Exposure details: 9 x180sec ISO-1000 RAW
Processing: Images plus (TRNT, Combined adtive add, Brightness contrast) Photoshop cs5 ( screen mask invert technique, color balance, levels, Highpass filter)
