M13 is arguably the greatest of the Northern hemisphere globular clusters and, after Omega Centauri, the greatest globular cluster in the sky.
It is a located about 26000 light years away and has a diameter of about 120 light years. It is one of about 250 globular clusters that surround the nucleus of our galaxy. Most galaxies have globular clusters in orbit around them and the reason why is still unclear. What is clear is that the clusters and the stars within them are extremely old, in the region of ten billion years old or twice the age of the sun.
M13 is visible with the naked eye on a dark night as a fuzzy star. A telescope reveals its starry nature and a scope over 8 inches will show many stars and is an amazing site to behold.
The above image is a composite of LRGB data with one hour of data in each of the RGB channels and two hours in the luminance, everything binned 1×1, giving a total of five hours imaging time. TEC 140 refractor and Atik 460 camera CCD camera with Baader LRGB filters. on MESU 200 mount. The data was collected in 2018 and processed in PixInsight. HDR tool makes a big impact in bringing out the detail in the core of the cluster.
TIP: In this picture look for the “Propeller”. Can you see it? 🙂
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