Lately, you are all tired of my crying over lousy seeing, lousy weather (we just got hit by two snow storms totaling over a meter of snow), and imaging with bright moonlight.

Finally everything came together, I had a short night (before clouds cut it off) of the best seeing I've ever had. This is a time to image globulars as they see to need seeing more than any other object. Their stars really look poor on an average night -- at least my average night which runs about 3.5" FWHM. But this night seeing was 2.08" FWHM. Boy did that make a difference. Sure be nice to see that more than once every three years. In measuring the stars around the cluster I came across several with sizes of over 3". This puzzled me until I noted their position and queried NED. Ned showed a 2MASX galaxy at most of those coordinates. So some of the "stars" in this image are distant galaxies. Of course you can see many obvious ones as well, some right through the stars of the globular. There's one asteroid as well 2004 SX11 at magnitude 19.6. You'll have to go to the URL to see it however as it is above the top of this cropped version I posted due to band width limits.

NGC 5053 is a very sparse, low concentration globular in Coma Berenices located some 55,000 light years away. The Sloan Deep Sky Survey has shown it to have a 6 degree tidal tail of stars caused by our galaxy stealing its stars. That might explain its sparse star count.

For the full image see: http://www.spacebanter.com/attachmen...tid=1849&stc=1

14" LX200R, L=4x10' binned 2x2, RGB=1x10' binned 3x3 (clouds prevented more), STL-11000XM, Paramount ME.

Rick

Attached Images

NGC5053LUM4x10RGB1X10R1crop800.jpg (143.0 KB, 36 views)

Wonderful detail and color!

Tom

Beautiful sharp image. Thanks Rick.

Kind regards
Matt

Looks like you've resolved it right through the core. Good job. A colorful target.
-Veeger

Rick,

Great detail in the core and wonderful colors.

And having lived in roughly your part of the county I complete understand your weather woes. In fact my brother was visiting my parents and experienced the snow storms by Lake Superior in Marquette, Michigan. The storm had brought up heavy waves. This snow/wave situation led to the attached photo. Where else would you ask the question cross-country ski or surf? Or in your case, image, ski or surf?



--Andy

Attached Images

Ski-Surf.jpg (97.0 KB, 10 views)

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Observatorio de la Ballona

We got too much for the cross country skiers. Too wet as well. Doesn't work for snowmobiles either. So everyone is unhappy. Water sports are out for some time. I was watching an ice fisherman and he still needed to add an extension to his 3' augur to get through the ice. It has to be over 3 foot thick yet. That was just before the storm. No way they can get out there now. Deer are crossing the lake however but only show their heads. They look rather odd with just their heads bobbing up and down. Slow going. Takes them an hour to make a 5 minute crossing.

Rick

A beautiful cluster it is, very sharp and the colors and its core are amazing. Welldone Rick you did it again. Clear Skies

They are beautiful!

Look like candies at at distance.

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Jean
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"The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing." - Albert Einstein

"The good life is inspired by love and guided by knowledge " - Bertrand Russell