08 Ιουνίου 2024

Great Star Cluster in Hercules(M 13)


Telescope : SW Esprit 100ED
Mount : SW EQ6-ri 
Camera : ZWO 533 mc pro
Guiding : 8x50 SW finder with QHY 5IIL
Filters:   Total exposure time :2 hours from 2 nights
Programs I have used : Nina 3.0 _ PixInsight 1.8.9-2

Location: Grammatiko, Attiki 

Messier 13 (M13), also designated NGC 6205 and sometimes called the Great Globular Cluster in Hercules or the Hercules Globular Cluster, is a globular cluster of about 300,000 stars in the constellation of Hercules.

M13 was discovered by Edmond Halley in 1714, and catalogued by Charles Messier on June 1, 1764. It is located at right ascension 16h 41.7m and declination +36° 28'. With an apparent magnitude of 5.8, it is barely visible with the naked eye on a very clear night. Its diameter is about 23 arc minutes and it is readily viewable in small telescopes. Nearby is NGC 6207, a 12th magnitude edge-on galaxy that lies 28 arc minutes directly north east. A small galaxy, IC 4617, lies halfway between NGC 6207 and M13, north-northeast of the large globular cluster's center.

M13 is about 145 light-years in diameter, and it is composed of several hundred thousand stars, the brightest of which is the variable star V11 with an apparent magnitude of 11.95. M13 is 25,100 light-years away from Earth.

02 Ιουνίου 2024

Cygnus Star Cloud(Tulip Nebula or Sh2-101)


 
Telescope : SW Esprit 100ED
Mount : SW EQ6-ri 
Camera : ZWO 533 mc pro
Guiding : 8x50 SW finder with QHY 5IIL
Filters:   Total exposure time : 5 hours and 35 minutes (31-05-2024)
Programs I have used : Nina 2.3 _ PixInsight 1.8.9-2
Location: Grammatiko, Attiki

Sharpless 101 (Sh2-101) is a H II region emission nebula located in the constellation Cygnus. It is sometimes also called the Tulip Nebula because it appears to resemble the outline of a tulip when imaged photographically. It was catalogued by astronomer Stewart Sharpless in his 1959 catalog of nebulae. It lies at a distance of about 6,000 light-years (5.7×1016 km; 3.5×1016 mi) from Earth.

Sh2-101, at least in the field seen from Earth, is in close proximity to microquasar Cygnus X-1, site of one of the first suspected black holes. Cygnus X-1 is located about 15 west of Sh2-101. The companion star of Cygnus X-1 is a spectral class O9.7 Iab supergiant with a mass of 21 solar masses and 20 times the radius of the Sun. The period of the binary system is 5.8 days and the pair is separated by 0.2 astronomical units. The black hole has a mass of 15 solar masses and a Schwarzschild radius of 45 km. A bowshock is created by a jet of energetic particles from the black hole as they interact with the interstellar medium. It can be seen as an arc at the top of the photo on the left.