6000 Globular Clusters!

[strongmanmike]

Some might find this interesting :)

The Elliptical galaxy at the heart of the Fornax Cluster NGC 1399 is an immense galaxy with over 6000 globular star clusters swarming in its huge halo. By reducing the bright galaxy halo and enhancing my recent Fornax Galaxies image reveals some of these massive star clusters. At 60 Million lyrs distance, even the brighter members in the swarm are fainter than Magnitude 20.

NGC 1399 Globular Cluster Swarm (http://www.pbase.com/strongmanmike2002/image/147560274/original)

This image was taken in some wind too so it should get better when protected inside the dome :thumbsup:

You can read a detailed study about the globular clusters of NGC 1399 HERE (http://iopscience.iop.org/1538-3881/125/4/1908/pdf/1538-3881_125_4_1908.pdf)

[avandonk]

Now you are just showing off Mike! :) Seriously it never ceases to amaze me what us amateurs can image now in the way of really dim stuff. It does help to point out what we are looking at.

The mind boggling size of the objects and often the violence of the natural processes within that we image is often lost in the lack of narrative.

Bert

[Miaplacidus]

Interesting. Like the images, too. Thanks for posting Mike.
Very nice.

[gregbradley]

Remakarkable Mike.

You are making want to get an AG12!

Greg.

[David Fitz-Henr]

Hey that's interesting stuff Mike; also shows there are different ways to process an image to sh0ow off different types of detail. One thing though, I could only count 5999 globulars - where exactly is the 6000th ?? :rofl:

[Larryp]

A remarkable and interesting image, Mike!

[tilbrook@rbe.ne]

Wow!

Swarm all right, amazing to see.

Thanks Mike!

Cheers,

Justin.

[spacezebra]

Stunning image Mike

Cheers Petra d.

[RickS]

Amazing that we can detect stuff like that with "amateur" instruments these days!

[Leonardo70]

Really impressive Mike ... never seen before !!
Really deep.

All the best,
Leo

[naskies]

Amazing!

[ourkind]

I love your work Mike!

[strongmanmike]

Thanks for looking guys :thumbsup:

Digging out interesting things in an image is great fun...I mean 6000 globular clusters??? :eyepop: That's just ridiculous!

Cheers

Mike

[TrevorW]

When I click on the image it goes to a small thumbnail :question:

no way can I count them with that :mad2: :P

:thumbsup:

[strongmanmike]

Small thumbnail..? Not sure why that would be :shrug:...hmmm

[Stevec35]

Very impressive Mike. I've always been a fan of faint globulars.

Cheers

Steve

[Ross G]

An amazing photo Mike.

Outstanding detail.

Thanks.

Ross.

[alexandre]

Helo Mike!
Superb !
Another very interesting subject!!;)

Thanks!
Bye
@lex

[SkyViking]

Great work Mike, there is so much good stuff lurking in these images. So how many of them do you think you picked up and what is the faintest globular you could extract from the halo?

Next up must be M87 with over 12,000 globulars... :P

[strongmanmike]

Cheers guys, something different I guess? :thumbsup:

Thanks for looking and finding the time to comment...on one of my infernal repros :P :)....I think it is a disease :question:

Mike

[rogerg]

Very interesting, thanks for bringing the paper to our attention Mike. So often these days I think how much great science we could all be doing if only we dedicated the time to specific tasks and had the ideas in the first place. I'm sure a lot of us could do similar papers using observations from our own telescopes.

[strongmanmike]

Yeh? Ya recon?.... not sure I could get a reliable spectra for a 21st mag globular cluster though :question: :lol:

Mike

[rogerg]

Well I guess I don't know at what point the signal of stars is bright enough for good analysis, but we can photograph galaxies of mag 21.5 so why not stars? :)