Messier 05 Globular Cluster

[Ryderscope]

Messier 05 is a Globular Cluster located in the constellation of Serpens Caput (the Snake Head), and makes for fine viewing with the mix of orange and blue stars and pairs well with the bright star 5 Serpentis. The cluster is comprised of over 100,000 stars and is located approximately 25,000 light years away from Earth. Whilst we can see 5 Serpentis in the same field of view as the cluster, the star is only 83 light years away so is much closer.

5 Serpentis is a binary star. The primary component (5 Ser A) has a visual magnitude of 5.1 whilst its companion (5 Ser B) has a magnitude of 10.1 and is separated by 11.4 arc seconds. I would like to be able to claim that I have captured this binary companion with the small orange star that we can see very close to 5 Serpentis in the image but alas, I cannot do this. Or I suppose I could claim this but I would be incorrect in doing so :D Using the Stellarium planetarium program to measure the angular separation between these two stars in the image, I find that the separation is 34 arc seconds. The actual binary companion is buried in the glow from the primary star.

Link to Astrobin image here. (https://astrob.in/m7cbnp/0/)
Click on image in Astrobin for larger resolution.

Click and zoom on image on Flickr here. (https://flic.kr/p/2k7oc9o)

CS,
Rodney

[Andy01]

Nice pairing there Rodney- the glob is a pretty one too with nice colour contrasts. Well done! 😊

[strongmanmike]

Well, what a lovely glob shot, very pretty, excellent Rod :)

Mike

[Placidus]

Spantacular Rodney! The colours are beautiful. Every star is perfect. Resolved to the core.

(Interesting: on my laptop, on FaceBook, the image looked black and white. I thought Trish was pulling your leg when she commented on the colour. So I downloaded the image (on the laptop) and the colour was obvious and beautiful. Dunno what was going on. Perhaps FB hates my laptop).

Best,
Mike

[Ryderscope]

Many thanks. The pairing worked out well. For my field of view I had to decide whether to crop right down on to the globular or pull back and present a wider field. I agree with the issues on FB regarding colour. The FB algorithms can do nasty things to our images.

Globulars, and open clusters for that matter, can be a bit like fast food. Something quick to grab whilst waiting for the main event but will sometimes surprise and be a show all on their own :)

[ChrisV]

Nicely framed. I'm liking it!

[multiweb]

Beautiful colors and depth. It does looks 3D. :thumbsup::

[Ryderscope]

Thanks Chris, Thanks Marc. 3D sounds good :D

[AUST2000]

I like it, a really nice image Rodney.


Andrew