NGC 6791 (2022)
- Constellation: Lyra
- Right Ascension: 19h 20m 53s
- Declination: +37° 46.3′
- Distance: 13,300 ly
NGC 6791 is an interesting open cluster in Lyra, containing thousands of stars, its one of the older clusters known at 8 billion years. Most clusters tend to disperse over the millennia due to gravitational influences. In addition the stars are metal rich that is to be expected for an old cluster. Old clusters tend to be metal poor in their composition as it usually takes several star birth, death cycles to build up metals. That makes it one of the most studied open clusters.
The bright reddish-orange star above and left of the cluster is U Lyr, a red giant carbon star.
- Details
- Category: Open Clusters
- Telescope: Explore Scientific 127 Refractor
- Camera: ZWO 2600 MM
NGC 4647 and Messier 60, Dance of Galaxies.
- Constellation: Virgo
- Right Ascension: 12h 43m 32.3s
- Declination: 11° 34′ 55″
- Distance: 56 million ly - 63 million ly
NGC 4647 is an intermediate spiral galaxy, and Messier 60 is elliptical galaxy that are just beginning to interact with each other. The pair of interacting galaxies are cataloged as Arp 116, which is a catalog of interacting galaxies. The pair are a part of the Virgo galaxy cluster.
Annotated image follows.
- Details
- Category: Galaxies
Read more: NGC 4647 and Messier 60, Dance of Galaxies.
- Telescope: Explore Scientific 127 Refractor
- Camera: ZWO 2600 MM
Messier 75 (2022)
- Constellation: Sagittarius
- Right Ascension: 20h 06m 04.85s
- Declination: −21° 55′ 17.85″
- Distance: 68,000 ly
If globular cluster NGC 5897 (2022) ranks low on the Shapely-Sawyer concentration scale, Messier 75 comes out at the top of it's class with a rank of 1 (I). If it wasn't for being on the other side of the galactic center, it would be much more spectacular to image. The cluster has a radius of 67 light years, and contains some 400,000 stars. Would definitely be a sky full of bright stars if one was located inside the cluster.
- Details
- Category: Globular Clusters
- Telescope: Explore Scientific 127 Refractor
- Camera: ZWO 2600 MM
NGC 5897 (2022)
- Constellation: Libra
- Right Ascension: 15h 17m 24.40s
- Declination: −21° 00′ 36.4″
- Distance: 40,000 ly
User Rating: 5 / 5
NGC 5897 is a globular cluster that is a satellite globular of the Milky Way Galaxy. Forming at or before the formation of our galaxy, they typically range in age of 10-12 billion years old. Age is estimated based on the amount of metal located in the stars, which is considered to be anything other than hydrogen and helium. It's measure of metallicity is measured at -1.9 (Fe/H). NGC 5897 has a low density of stars, and using the Sawyer Concentration class which ranges from 1 to 12 (most to least), it is ranked as a low 11.
- Details
- Category: Globular Clusters
- Telescope: Explore Scientific 127 Refractor
- Camera: ZWO 2600 MM
Y CVn
- Constellation: Canes Venatici
- Right Ascension: 12h 45m 07.826s
- Declination: +45° 26′ 24.93″
- Distance: 760 - 1000 ly
- Apparent Magnitude: +4.86 - +7.32
Also know as its popular name La Superba, a giant red star, and one of the reddish known with a B-V index of 2.54. A carbon in the star's outer shell absorbs blue light giving its distinctive reddish light. Primary has a 160 day cycle in its magnitude variations. The star is in its final stages of its evolution and is expected to expel its outer layers in the future, and form a planetary nebula before shrinking down to become a slowly cooling white dwarf.
- Details
- Category: Stars
- Telescope: GSO RC10
- Camera: ZWO 2600 MM
Draco Dwarf Galaxy
- Constellation: Draco
- Right Ascension: 17h 20m 12.4
- Declination: +57° 54′ 55″
- Distance: 260,000 ly
A bit difficult to see, it was only noticed in 1954 from Palomar sky survey photographic plates. It is a satellite galaxy of our Milky Way galaxy.
Consisting of mostly old population stars its virtually dust free thus not creating very many new stars.
Annotated image follows.
- Details
- Category: Galaxies
- Telescope: Explore Scientific 127 Refractor
- Camera: ZWO 2600 MM
Page 2 of 5