This time of year often sees a number of close up shots of the famous and much closer globular cluster M4
but nearby, between M4 and the bright Antares, lies a much more distant and thus smaller but lovely golden
globular cluster NGC 6144 which generally only gets captured in wide field images.
At a distance of 30,000 light years from the Sun, NGC 6144 lies well beyond the dusty regions around
the star Antares through which its light shines. This places it about three times further away than
the more famous globular cluster M4 located nearby. The light from NGC 6144 travels through a lot of
intervening dust as well as the yellow coloured nebula around the bright star Antares and this
contributes significantly to its beautiful yellow-red colouring.
This short data set, of what is a small and rather faintish globular, was collected over three nights between other projects, as a fill in image
For the eagle eyed, there appears to be a distant galaxy in there too...
NGC 6144 (Full Frame)
NGC 6144 up close (100% crop)
Mike