Category: Clusters

M5 is a pretty large globular cluster near the equator that contains from 100,000 to 500,000 stars. It was a second sequence in my recent imaging project. I got about seven hours of data on it. Continue Reading... "M5"

Rain is scheduled for the next week, but I got one clear night last night beforehand. There wasn’t too much to pick from, so I found some star clusters that are far away from the galactic plane. These don’t tend to need so much data to turn out well. In… Continue Reading... "A tale of two clusters"

This was a tag along sequence after the Triangulum went over the trees. A couple nights of data were ruined from the moon, but I ended up with a little over 8 hours on M36. There are a couple of weird diffraction effects on the right side, no idea what… Continue Reading... "Pinwheel Cluster"

The moon is still being a pain in my ass, so I again had to take a break from imaging the Triangulum galaxy after meridian. I wanted to do something a little farther north to see if I could get away from the moon, and I only had about 6… Continue Reading... "Jolly Roger Cluster"

A misadventure in framing, I tacked on the Shoebuckle Cluster after the sequence of my current project, the Triangulum galaxy. A quick search of the eastern sky around 3:00 AM in Stellarium showed the Shoebuckle being a prominent feature, so I quickly added it as a sequence without regard for… Continue Reading... "Shoebuckle cluster"

Over two nights, I decided to go hard on M92, mostly since the moon was out each night. The first night didn’t last long before clouds filled the sky. I got about six hours on it. Continue Reading... "M92"

I wanted to try to do a mosaic of M53 and its neighbor NGC 5053, but it turns out I can’t since I have some field curvature, and things just won’t line up for me when stitching the panels. So, here is M53 again. Continue Reading... "M53"

With the moon out in full all night long, my only realistic targets were clusters. I imaged a pair of clusters at the end of the night, and, little did I know, it went behind a big tree half way through. Guiding was also being weird half of the time,… Continue Reading... "“Possible Binary Cluster,” NGC 6755 and 6756"

I needed to waste a couple hours before the sun came up and after my last target went over the trees, so I picked the open cluster NGC 6819. 40 exposures of four minutes each led to a rich star field. Continue Reading... "The Foxhead, an open cluster"

With just a little time left in the night, I decided to try the globular cluster M56. Not bad for only barely two hours of data! Continue Reading... "M56, a hell of a star field"