May 2, 2019

Hercules Cluster of Galaxies (well, part of it) (April 2019)


This cluster of galaxies is >500 million light years away in Hercules.  I count four Arp galaxies in this frame alone.  It's like a managerie of galactic curiosities.  This was a lot of fun to shoot.

I confess to not knowing this was here or that I could even image such a distant cluster.  I was looking for an interesting target in Hercules, or at least eastern Bootes.  I saw a galaxy in SkySafari, NGC 6045A, that had an interesting description and figured, why not?  Hmm.  I should have shifted the scene slightly south.  Oh, well.  The subs for this image were taken in the dead of night, from 1 am to around 4.  The air was super-still the first night.  We have some good depth. The deepest stars here are dimmer than mag 18.  This is 41x600" with the SXVF-H9 and Astronomik CLS filter through the Synta-ONTC 203mm f/4.95 Newt.

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