M3
NGC 5272
The M3 globular cluster is one of the largest and brightest in the Milky Way. This ancient, 11.4 billion years old cluster is made up of half a million stars and thousands are visible in this picture. It is located 32,600 light-years away from Earth and is quite isolated from the rest of our galaxy because it is ~40° above the galactic plane.
On two consecutive nights we’ve been imaging M3 and M13. M13 was the primary objective, but we used the early hours of the night when that was not yet in position on the secondary objective, M3.
[pending updates]
| Telescope | Skywatcher Esprit 100ED (f/5.5) |
| Filter | Astrodon LRGB Gen2 E-Series |
| Field flattener | Skywatcher Esprit (1x) |
| Camera | QHYCCD 268m, -20°C, Mode 0, Gain 26, Offset 30 |
| Resolution | 2988x1866 (cropped & scaled 50%) |
| Light frames | R: 20/24 (300s), 1:40h total |
| G: 23/24 (300s), 1:55h total | |
| B: 23/24 (300s), 1:55h total | |
| 5h30m total | |
| Flat frames | 16 each (3s) |
| Darkflat frames | 16 |
| Dark frames | 13 |
| Bias frames | - |
| Location | Bolton, UK |
| Local time | 2022-03-26 20:55 - 23:45 (22 light frames used) |
| 2022-03-28 20:19 - 01:28 (44 light frames used) | |
| Image center | 13h41m53s +28°24'06" |
| Field of view | 2°7 x 1°15 (rotation 91°) |
2020 version
This image was taken 2 years ago and also with a very different setup.
| Camera | Canon 400D |
| Telescope | Skywatcher 200/1000 Newton |
| Corrector | Vixen R200SS |
| Resolution | 3888 x 2592 (cropped & scaled to 878 x 683) |
| Light frames | 5, 60s (5m total) @ ISO 400 |
| Dark frames | - |
| Bias frames | - |
| Flat frames | - |
| Location | Bolton, UK |
| Local time | 2020-04-11 22:26:12 - 22:38:08 |