Monday, December 4, 2017

M 2 Globular Star Cluster before the Moon rose tonight

Messier 2

After a very clear and cold day I was eager to get into the observatory and do a little imaging.
However the star alignment with the Meade LX200GPS was off and I had take a good deal of time getting all the settings back in order again.
Finally was able to take a few images of Messier 2 (M 2) which is a globular star cluster in the southern sky. It is believed that there are around 150,000 stars in this cluster!
Still due to unsteady seeing I was only able to stack a few images (25 secs each) before the Moon began to fill the sky with its light.
This image (cropped) is just over 2 minutes of total exposure time at ISO 800, Canon 40D body, a focal reducer and daylight white balance setting.
Some post-processing with Luminar and Irfanview.
Enjoy!

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