Astrophotos—Globular Clusters

One million solar masses crammed into one spot. Globular cluster 47 Tucanae, by Steve Crouch

While delving around the SMC I couldn’t resist doing a shot of 47 Tucanae which I haven’t imaged for several years.  This is 45 minutes exposure for each of L,R,G and B with the RGB added into L for synthetic luminance. 

Catalogue and alternative designations NGC 104, 47 Tucanae
Type Globular Cluster
Position 00 24.1, -72 05
Constellation Tucana
Camera and Telescope STXL11002 and 36.8 cm Ritchey Chretien
Focal Ratio F9
Exposure Details LRGB 90:45:45:45 All 1×1.  Synthetic luminance used.
Description 47 Tucanae is the second brightest globular cluster in the sky but has a much stronger central condensation than Omega Centauri.  It is adjacent to the Small Magellanic Cloud and a very easy naked eye object.

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One million solar masses crammed into one spot. Globular cluster 47 Tucanae — Steve Crouch

NGC 104
47 Tucanae [NGC 104]

While delving around the SMC I couldn’t resist doing a shot of 47 Tucanae which I haven’t imaged for several years.  This is 45 minutes exposure for each of L,R,G and B with the RGB added into L for synthetic luminance.

Catalogue and alternative designations NGC 104, 47 Tucanae

Type Globular Cluster
Position 00 24.1, -72 05
Constellation Tucana
Camera and Telescope STXL11002 and 36.8 cm Ritchey Chretien
Focal Ratio F9
Exposure Details LRGB 90:45:45:45 All 1×1.  Synthetic luminance used.

Description

47 Tucanae is the second brightest globular cluster in the sky but has a much stronger central condensation than Omega Centauri.  It is adjacent to the Small Magellanic Cloud and a very easy naked eye object.

You can see more of Steve Crouch’s astrophotography over on his website.
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The globular cluster 47 Tucanae — Mark Nickols

47 Tucanae
47 Tucanae [NGC 104]
In the Southern Hemisphere, we have some of the best globular clusters, including the biggest of all Omega Centauri with some five million solar masses, and this beauty: 47 Tucanae with about one million solar masses. Here’s a good shot of “47 Tuc” by Mark Nickols:

I’m still struggling with guiding issues, but just to prove my issue is not optics, I again pointed the scope southward where things don’t move around so much and snapped 47 Tucanae last night, just to prove I can manage to take round stars (as opposed to eggs, tadpoles, dumbbells, etc). I personally prefer Omega Centauri, but it’s pretty impressive nonetheless (the globular cluster, not necessarily the image).

10 x 3 minute exposures. Scope: LX200 8″, f/6.7 focal reducer.Camera: SBIG STF8300C

 

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Tarantula Nebula — Mark Nickols

Tarantula Nebula
Tarantula Nebula

Good astrophotography is completely reliant on reliable tracking by the telescope. You have the mount, your computer, tracking and guidance software, and all the pieces in the chain have to be working and communicating properly with each other. There’s nothing ‘plug-and-play’ about this game and when things don’t go right, it can be incredibly frustrating.

Mark Nickols, despite experiencing such problems, still managed to pull off this nice shot of the Tarantula Nebula, part of the Large Magellanic Cloud, a small galaxy close to ours at about 163,000 light years:

I’m currently battling some guiding issues. In the early hours two nights ago, after some frustrating hours on another target, as an additional experiment I turned the scope to the tarantula nebula. The guiding software refuses to work at all for this target I guess because it is too near the pole and the software complains that the stars are not moving enough too do a calibration. Anyway I got off just a small number of shots before things got very hazy and I had to give up. So here anyway is just 8 x 2 minute stacked exposures of the tarantula – unguided. Could have been centred better but could be worse.

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Stunning galaxy group NGC 7172 — Steve Crouch

NGC 7172
NGC 7172

Steve Crouch has come up with this pearler of a galaxy group, with NGC 7172 showing beautiful dust lanes and colour. Look closely and you’ll see at least 40 galaxies in this single photo! With an average of 100 billion stars per galaxy, that’s a heck of a lot of stars…

Catalogue and alternative designations NGC 7172 galaxy group, Hickson 90

Type  Compact galaxy group
Position 22 02.0, -31 52
Constellation Piscis Austrinus
Camera and Telescope STXL11002 and 36.8 cm Ritchey Chretien Focal Ratio F9
Exposure Details LRGB 225:45:40:40 Luminance binned 1×1, Colours 2×2 with Baader filters

Description

This little group of galaxies doesn’t seem to be imaged much.  NGC 7172 is lower left of centre (with the dust lane). NGC 7173, 7174 and 7176 form the interacting group just above centre.  ESO 466-46 and 466-47 are to the lower right.  The bright star is magnitude 6.7.

Galaxies range in size from 10 million stars up to 100 trillion! And there are some 170 billion galaxies in the known observable universe… Incomprehensible numbers.

 

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