M13, A Wider View

[Mike Lewis]

So here is another object that is often shot with more magnification, but as I am currently constrained to my 580mm refractor I got a somewhat wider view, although this has been cropped a bit to get a little closer. I also liked the square format for this one. This is also a shorter stack for me, being slightly less than 3 hours of total data. I found the dynamic range of the object to be challenging, and also had issues when trying to combine my luminance data without washing out the colors. This is actually showing here already at actual size I think, due to the cropping. This has been mostly a fill in object while I waited for the Pelican Nebula to get above the horizon. Comments, critiques and suggestions welcome.

Equipment:
ZWO ASI1600MM-C Camera @ -15C and
Gain:0 Offset:10
Software Bisque MyT Mount
Stellarvue SVQ100 Astrograph Refractor, 580mm @ f/5.8

Software:
Pixinsight Commercial Version 1.8
Lightroom CC
Photoshop CC

Light Frames:
Luminance: 50 x 30 secs (25 mins)
Red:50 x 60 secs (50 mins)
Green:50 x 60 secs (50 mins)
Blue: 49 x 60 secs (49 mins)


2 hrs 54 mins total

Dark Frames:
10 x 30 secs, RGB (5 mins)
10 x 60 secs, Luminance (10 mins)
Bias Frames
60

Flat Frames
10 each filter

Here is some more info on M13 from Wikipedia:
Messier 13 or M13, also designated NGC 6205 and sometimes called the Great Globular Cluster in Hercules or the Hercules Globular Cluster, is a globular cluster in the constellation of Hercules. About 145 light-years in diameter, M13 is composed of several hundred thousand stars, the brightest of which is a red giant, the variable star V11, also known as V1554 Herculis,[12] with an apparent visual magnitude of 11.95. M13 is 22,200–25,000 light-years away from Earth.[13]

 

[AlanLichty]

Looks like an outer space paintball splat job

Neat to see the colors in a scene like this. They add a lot to the resulting image.

 

[JimFox]

Wow Mike, to be honest I had dismissed this one from wanting to capture, but you have made me change my thinking. This looks really cool, and for me 3 hours is a lot of data.... It's great to see you taking the time to capture some of these, that to me anyway are lesser known, and you are capturing them even if you don't end up with your normal 12 to 15 hours of data.

So great job here Mike! I need to aim for this puppy the next time I get out.

 

[Ben Egbert]

Good one

 

[Jameel Hyder]

A very interesting DSO.

 

[Mike Lewis]

Thanks everyone for the feedback!

I must admit when I started out in astroimaging, I was not all that excited about globular clusters, but they are actually more interesting imaging targets than I expected, and certainly a fascinating object to imagine being inside of. While this references a different globular cluster, you get the idea:

https://io9.gizmodo.com/what-the-night-sky-would-look-like-from-inside-a-globul-1589324556

Jim,

These are fun targets and reasonable for you to go after. As this image shows, even a smaller scale image of one can provide some nice detail and they are often relatively bright.

ML

 

[chuckp]

Mike, nice shot, very nice star colors.