North vs. South
The Best Globular Cluster in the Sky - Omega Centauri
Globular star clusters are ancient knots of stars that form a halo around the center of the Milky Way galaxy. Northern hemisphere observers are generally unable to sight Omega Centauri, the grandest globular cluster visible from Earth. It packs a million suns in a disk the size of a full moon and is visible to the naked eye.
On March 9, 2002 I was able to sight it while imaging at Anza, California. It was so low in the sky that my finder scope was showing the ground when I centered the cluster! The first row of images compares three globular clusters on the same scale – Takahashi FSQ106 scope & ST8E CCD. Even M13, The Great Hercules Cluster, seems small in comparison. The larger scale image below is a combination of ten 60 second exposures. |
