Some Clusters for a Change of Pace

[kiwiapple]

I have been putting together a book of astro images after having been asked by quite a few guests if they could buy such a thing from me. In the course of putting this together and deciding what to include, I knew I had to include the Jewel Box Cluster, since it was one of the things that, on seeing for the first time through a telescope back in 2020, prompted me to buy a telescope and embark on this crazy hobby. Unfortunately, the only image I had of this target was shot very early in my career and was just horrible--bloated stars, oversaturated colours, and just unusable. Conditions on Sunday looked promising to reshoot it, so that's what I did, along with the globular cluster M4, and then the weather looked good for the first half of Monday night so I shot two more globulars, M22 and C80. I think I now have enough clusters for that section of the book. All these were shot with an 8" Celestron EdgeHD SCT telescope on a Sky-Watcher HEQ5-Pro mount using a ZWO ASI533MC-Pro camera and UV-IR Cut filter.

NGC4755, the Jewel Box:

M22, Globular Cluster in Scorpius:

M22, Globular Cluster in Sagittarius:

C80, Omega Centauri Cluster:

 

[JimFox]

Awesome work James! I like all of these. And that's so cool that you are putting together a book of your astro images.

Clusters were something that I didn't really like when I got started into Astro. It took me a few years to really appreciate them, and now I am a big fan of them.

 

[kiwiapple]

Awesome work James! I like all of these. And that's so cool that you are putting together a book of your astro images.

Clusters were something that I didn't really like when I got started into Astro. It took me a few years to really appreciate them, and now I am a big fan of them.

Same here--I was more interested in the flashier and more colourful nebulae than boring old clusters, but I have learned to appreciate clusters now and really enjoy shooting them. And it doesn't hurt that you don't need multiple nights to capture them!