Hi Paul,
Quote:
Originally Posted by Lismore Bloke
... my rather amateurish posts in this part of the forum.
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Not at all mate -- it was a nice short report that I enjoyed too.
NGC 7089 (M2) is a really wonderful globular that (provided the seeing cooperates and you have a goodish sky) resolves quite well.
Its brightest stars are mag 13.1 and the H-B magnitude is 16.1. So a 30cm 'scope in the best of conditions will resolve a heck of a lot of stars at moderate to high magnification. I'd suggest x200 - x250 in 30cm. It is well concentrated to the centre (like 47 Tucanae) so "cracking the core" is hard. I seem to remember somewhere that Herschel described it as looking like a "heap of fine sand or salt" -- or some-such.
NGC 6981 I'd reckon is the poorest of the Messier globulars. The description you gave summed it up well. It's kind of a pity that Messier & Co didn't travel south to see some
real GCs.
Best,
Les D