globular cluster – Semper Iuvenis Photography

M 14 – A Globular Cluster of Stars in Ophiuchus

Continuing with Globular Clusters, I present M 14. It is a colorful cluster of over 150,000 stars. These stars have been traveling through space as a singular entity over the past 13 billion years.

Globular clusters are densely packed collections of stars. They are roughly spherical and are held together by gravity. Often, they are found in the outer regions (halos) of galaxies. They can contain tens of thousands to millions of stars and are among the oldest objects in a galaxy.

Messier 14 (M14) is a globular cluster located in the southern constellation Ophiuchus. The cluster lies at a distance of 30,300 light years from Earth and has an apparent magnitude of 7.6. It has the designation NGC 6402 in the New General Catalogue.

Messier 14 is elongated in shape and contains about 150,000 stars. It occupies an area about 100 light years across in size. M14 can easily be seen in binoculars, but is not visible to the naked eye. The brightest star in the cluster has a visual magnitude of 14. The average apparent magnitude of the cluster’s 25 brightest stars is 15.44.

The cluster has only about 5 percent of the Sun’s heavy elements. Its estimated age is about 13 billion years. Imaged the evening of June 23, 2025 using an RC 8 telescope and ASI071MC astro camera.

Acquisition details

NGC 6229 – A Globular Cluster

NGC 6229 is a globular cluster located in the constellation Hercules. NGC 6229 is located at about 100,000 light years away from Earth. It is an intermediate-metallicity globular cluster. It has two distinct generations of stars. It may be the remnant core of a spheroidal dwarf galaxy.

Acquisition details.

Imaged from my driveway with a Bortle 4 sky. 93 x 60s subframes were collected using my RC8 telescope at 1627mm and the ASI071MC camera.

Messier 10 Globular Cluster in Ophiuchus

The Milky Way galaxy is home to roughly 150 known globular clusters. These clusters are tightly packed, spherical groups of stars, typically containing tens of thousands to millions of stars. Globular clusters are generally very old. Their ages are 12-13 billion years. This age makes them among the oldest stellar objects in the Milky Way.

Messier 10 or M 10 is a bright and rich globular cluster of stars in the equatorial constellation of Ophiuchus.

At approximately 15,000 light-years from Earth it is one of the closest globular clusters. It’s estimated to be about 11.4 billion years old., making it one of the younger globular clusters in our galaxy.

Image acquisition via APT 4.63 and consists of 208 60 second exposures, or a little over 3 hours of integrated light.

RC8 scope at 1625mm fl; ASI 071MC camera cooled to 15f; EQ6r Pro mount.

Image calibrated, integrated, and processed manually in PixInsight.

Exploring M 53/NGC 5053 – a globular cluster pair in Coma Berenices

A globular star Cluster (M 53) is located in Coma Berenices. It is one of the most distant globular clusters, situated 59k ly from earth. Globular star clusters are found in the galactic plane of our Milky Way Galaxy. They cause the massive glow of our core.

Astrobin link for this image.

M 53 appears to be connected to the nearby globular cluster NGC 5053 by a tidal bridge-like structure. To the right is a low mass globular cluster cataloged as NGC 5053 – 56k ly from earth. This is a metal-poor cluster. This means the stars have a low abundance of elements other than hydrogen and helium. Astronomers term this “metallicity”. As recently as 1995, it was considered the most metal-poor globular cluster in the Milky Way.

The chemical abundances of the stars in NGC 5053 are similar to those in the dwarf galaxy. Specifically, they resemble the Sagittarius Dwarf Spheroidal Galaxy. They differ from those in the Milky Way halo. The kinematics of the globular cluster support this idea. This suggests that NGC 5053 may have been stripped from the dwarf galaxy.

M 15 – Great Star Cluster in Pegasus

Messier 15 or M15 (also designated NGC 7078 and sometimes known as the Great Pegasus Cluster) is a globular cluster. It is located in the constellation Pegasus.

M 15 is about 35,700 light-years from Earth, and 175 light-years in diameter. It has an absolute magnitude of −9.2, which translates to a total luminosity of 360,000 times that of the Sun. Messier 15 is one of the most densely packed globulars known in the Milky Way galaxy. Its core has undergone a contraction known as “core collapse.” It has a central density cusp. An enormous number of stars surround what may be a central black hole.

The cluster is home to over 100,000 stars. It is notable for containing a large number of variable stars (112) and pulsars (8). One of these pulsars includes a double neutron star system, M15-C. It also contains Pease 1, the first planetary nebula discovered within a globular cluster in 1928. Just three others have been found in globular clusters since then.

M 2 – Globular Cluster in Aquarius

Messier 2 - Globular Cluster in Aquarius

Messier 2 or M2 (also designated NGC 7089) is a globular cluster in the constellation Aquarius. It is located five degrees north of the star Beta Aquarii. M2 contains about 150,000 stars, including 21 known variable stars. Its brightest stars are red and yellow giant stars. Messier 2 is located within our Milky Way galaxy. It is one of the oldest clusters of stars designated to the Milky Way. Like most globular clusters, M2 is found within the galactic halo, specifically in the southern galactic cap. This places it right below the southern pole of the Milky Way.

M2 was the first globular cluster added to the Messier catalog. It is located roughly 55,000 light-years from Earth in the constellation Aquarius. A globular cluster is a spherical group of stars that are bound together by their mutual gravitational attraction. M2 has a diameter of over 175 light-years and is one of the largest clusters of its kind. The cluster is rich, compact, and significantly elliptical. It is 12.5 billion years old and one of the older globular clusters associated with the Milky Way galaxy. It was discovered in 1746 by the French astronomer Jean-Dominique Maraldi while he was observing a comet.

This image consists of 66 120 second subs for a total exposure of 2.2 hours. Imaged with an RC8 and ASI071MC camera riding an EQ6r Pro mount from my driveway in the hills of western North Carolina, USA. All controlled using APT 4.50 with guiding by PHD2. Processed manually with PixInsight.

M 12 – Gumball Cluster in Ophiuchus

Another of the globular cluster targets on my list, M12 is bright and colorful. This image consists of 137 60 second subs taken with a GSO RC8 and a ZWO ASI071MC Pro camera cooled to 15f, riding an EQ6r Pro munt. Certainly a challenging night for imaging as we experienced a very rare Aurora this night here in the hills of NC. Seeing and transparency were poor and the wind was present so guiding was not the best. Still, I’m happy with it!

Messier 12 (M12), also known as the Gumball Cluster, is a globular cluster of stars in the constellation Ophiuchus. It’s located about 15,700–23,000 light-years from Earth and has a diameter of 75 light-years. M12 is one of the brightest of the seven Messier globulars in Ophiuchus, and it’s approaching our solar system at a speed of 16 kilometers per second.

M12 has fewer low-mass stars than expected, and astronomers believe that gravity has stripped many of them from the cluster as it passed through denser areas of the Milky Way. It’s thought that M12 may have lost up to one million stars in this way.

M 92 – Globular Cluster in Hercules

Messier 92 (M 92) is a globular cluster of stars in the constellation Hercules, about 26,740 light years from Earth. It’s one of the brightest globular clusters in the Milky Way. These ancient, giant clusters can contain tens of thousands to millions of stars, packed tightly together in dense clumps. They can survive for billions of years and can be found throughout the halo of our Milky Way galaxy.

M 92 is a very tightly packed cluster, containing roughly 330,000 stars in total. M92 is visible in the summer sky for observers at mid-northern latitudes. It can be seen with 10 × 50 binoculars, and a small telescope can resolve the outlying stars in the cluster. This image was created using a f8 GSO 8 inch Ritchie Creighton telescope and a ZWO ASI071MC pro astrophotography camera. 157 60s subs imaged May 1st, 2024. Image capture by APT Astro Photography Tool. Image processing with PixInsight.

During our spring season here in NC I like to image galaxies and globular star clusters. There are so many to choose from I generally am only able to spend a single night on a cluster. This one is nice. I particularly like the Red and Yellow stars found within the image in contrast to the hot blue stars.

M 5 – Globular Cluster

Messier 5 (M5) (also known as NGC 5904 or the Rose Cluster) is a globular star cluster in the constellation Serpens Caput (the Serpent’s Head) that’s visible from the Northern Hemisphere. It’s one of the largest and oldest globular clusters in the Milky Way galaxy, containing over 100,000 stars in a region about 165 light-years in diameter. M5 is located 24,500 light-years away from Earth and has an apparent magnitude of 6.7. It appears as a patch of light with binoculars and is best viewed during July.

M5 is a good target for beginner astro-photographers and is well known among visual astronomers as one of the best clusters to observe in the night sky. A 150–200mm (six- to eight-inch) telescope can provide a memorable view, allowing you to see individual stars across a roughly 10 arcminute-sized sphere and more or less all the way down to M5’s core. M5 makes an epic imaging target, especially for long focal length telescopes. This image was taken with an 8 inch Ritchie-Creighton telescope and a ZWO ASI071MC Pro astrophotography camera. – 61 120″ images combined.

Also in this image is IC 4537, a lenticular galaxy of type S0-a in the Serpens constellation, located 736 million light-years from the solar system. It has a surface brightness of magnitude 23.9, a Right Ascension of (15 hours: 17.5 minutes) and Declination (+0.2 degrees : 02 minutes). IC 4537 is located near the celestial equator and a few miles away from the globular cluster, Messier 5. (Top enter of this image)