A murky pair of globulars in Sagittarius/Baade's Window

[Martin Meredith]

I hesitate to post this one, but in the spirit of showing what is possible with EEVA techniques, here is a messy but I think interesting field containing two globular clusters that must be less than half a degree apart. There are few (if any) places where two globulars fit on to my tiny sensor. 

I observed this at 11 degrees and used 1s exposures to try to at least capture vaguely small stars; this is the best I could manage -- a grand total of 18s exposure before it disappeared below the roof of the church (not before producing some horrible artefacts).

This is close to the galactic centre and is apparently one of the brightest regions of the Milky Way due to a relatively small amount of obscuring dust, and as such is part of an observational 'opportunity' known as Baade's Window.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baade's_Window (where there is a wonderful photo showing just how star-dense this region is).

Both are estimated to be at around 25000 light-years distance. I wonder what the view is like from these globulars to one another. 

Ignore the time of 9.21 am; this was still on my laptop and unsaved until I came back to it this morning having abandoned any thought of saving it last night...

Martin

 

[Mike JW]

Fun to try these sorts of captures. Mike

[Martin Meredith]

This is the same pair with the same kit..... What a difference 6 degrees of altitude (and a night of better seeing) makes!

Even so, this was at 17 degrees and the quarter moon was not very far away at the time. Admittedly it is a longer exposure but that isn't the point -- the stars are crisp on the individual subs. This is a glorious region of the galaxy.

This is 4 x 15s in each of LRGB together with about 14 x 5s of luminosity data (this is becoming part of my live approach: lay down some colour then add in short exposure L if I want to capture spatial detail, or longer exposure L for more depth).

Ignore the temp/SQM details. Temp was around 20C and SQM I guess around 19 at this point.

[Mike JW]

Hi Martin, this second capture makes the point that cameras just like our eyes need good seeing/transparency to get the best results. Thanks for posting the comparison.

Mike

[Bill S]

Great shots. Yep, no substitute for a good steady clear atmosphere. Always worth having a go even when things aren't at their best, because it might be cloudy next time. And now I know a little bit about Baade's Window so thanks for that too!

[Martin Meredith]

Thanks Bill. The problem with great seeing is that it spoils the next night when the seeing returns to its usual mediocrity (as happened last night...). Actually, I did (by mistake) visit the same object on both nights so when I've sorted through the planetary nebulae I've been looking at these past couple of nights I'll post a comparison.