Hi all, with the breathtaking splendours of Sagittarius directly overhead I naturally immediately pointed my scope at... Terzan 5, one of the most obscure and faint globular clusters of the Milky Way
This obscure magnitude 14 globular shows a surprising amount of detail in the image. I could even see it directly in the preview using just a 3 second exposure, but of course only as a very very faint blob.
Terzan 5 is one of the globular clusters lying closest to the galactic centre at only 0.6kpc. It is significantly reddened and heavily obscured by the massive interstellar dust clouds in the direction of the Milky Way centre, by as much as 7 visual magnitudes.
It was discovered in 2009 that Terzan 5 contains at least two different populations of stars at 12 billion years and 6 billion years old respectively, which implies that it is not a true globular cluster but instead likely a remnant core of a dwarf galaxy which the Milky Way captured some time in the distant past. In this image it clearly features a somewhat comet-like shape, perhaps from being distorted by the Milky Way itself.
Other globulars which are suspected remnant galaxy cores are Omega Centauri and M54.
Image viewable here:
http://www.pbase.com/image/125694465
Image details:
Taken with 10" Newtonian and ToUCam Pro SC1.
118 x 30.5s
No guiding, no filters.
All comments welcome as usual.
Regards,
Rolf
