Sunday, July 1, 2012

Globular Star Clusters!

I have been working on the Globular Cluster list from the the Astronomical League.. One thing I have noticed with it the Messier globular clusters are some of the most beautiful objects in the sky, well except maybe M107, that one was maybe the least impressive and there are some NGCs from the Herschel 400 list that rival it. That being said one nice thing with the Messier listed Globular Clusters is that they are bright enough for scopes of say 6in or 8in range to really show the details and characteristics of the globular cluster. With the 10in LX200 the objects really have some pop. I also have enjoyed studying the brighter NGC globular clusters where some really show some detail and others it takes a bit more work to coax detail out of. I have also attempted to observe some clusters that are a bit more tough such as the Palomar clusters and G1 in M31. I don’t know if I have a favorite cluster, I really do enjoy M3 and M5. I also have enjoyed rediscovering many of the lesser known Messier clusters such as M12, M14 and M92. It has been fun trying to classify the clusters then looking in the established research to see what the cluster has been classified as by the professionals. This project will hopefully lead to observing all of the Milky Way globular clusters of which there is at least 150 (I have seen 152, 154 and 157 so take your pick and understand it will probably change over the course of a year). So my advice is try and get out there and observe some of these balls of stars, summer is here and many of them are in full view!

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