Globular Cluster M5 in Serpens Caput (& Struve 1930)
M6 - Current Pictures are Here
M5 is a nice globular cluster that is estimated to be nearly 13B years old and about 25M light years away. If you look at the bright star lower right, you may note that it is not uniform. That's because it's a double star. Quoting SEDS: The bright nearby double star 5 Serpentis was also cataloged as Struve 1930, and consists of components A, 5 mag, pale yellow, and B, 10 mag, light grey.
I was working with the Takahashi TOA 130 telescope with flattener a lot during my Davis Mountains 2016 trip and decided to hit a few star clusters. This is 9 frames of 5 minutes each with that optical train plus the Nikon D810A camera. My equipment rides on the AP 900GTO mount. Messier 5 is also cataloged as NGC 5904. My processing techniques are discussed here. SEDS talks about M5 here.
Here's another star cluster from the Spring 2016 Davis Mountains trip. This one used both the Takahashi TOA 130 telescope with flattener (5*5 minutes) and Nikon D810A camera, plus the Takahashi FSQ-85 Telescope with reducer, QHY8 CCD (8*5) minutes. My equipment rides on the AP 900GTO mount. Messier 3 is also cataloged as NGC 5272. I mostly used the FSQ image for star colors on this one. It bloated them a bit, but I'm willing to pay that price to add a little color/interest.
Above: 25 minutes, April, 2010 from the Davis Mountains. Takahashi TOA 130 Telescope (a 5" APO refractor) with reducer, AP 900GTO mount, and QHY8 CCD Camera & normal workflow.
This is a great binocular object in Scorpius. M6 is just north of (above) M7, in the low south during summer months. It's visible naked-eye from decent suburban skies. I believe that's part of NGC-6383 above right. Just before Midnight, 5/30/2005, Wimberly Texas. Effective frame size of a 1130mm lens considering the 1.5x magnification factor of my Nikon D100 Digital SLR (D-SLR) camera. Takahashi TOA 130 (5" APO refractor) With reducer, focal length is 754mm at f5.8
See other star clusters on Southern Star Clusters page.
See M6 in context on the Southern Milky Way page.
Clusters Page 1, Astrophotography: Clusters Page 2 by Dick Locke, Astrophotography: Clusters Page 3, by Dick Locke
Southern Scorpius: Cat's Paw Nebula, NGC 6634
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