The globular cluster Messier 13, a treasure chest of stars.
We present our stunning image of the iconic globular cluster Messier 13 (aka NGC 6202).
The globular cluster Messier 13.
The image above comes from the average of 26, 120-second exposures, remotely taken with the “Elena” (PlaneWave 17″ + Paramount MEII + SBIG STL-6303E) robotic unit available as part of the Virtual Telescope Project and installed in Manciano, Italy.
It shows Messier 13, the famous Great Globular Cluster in Hercules, one of the most fascinating objects in the northern deep sky.
Through the probing eye of the Virtual Telescope Project, this cosmic wonder reveals itself in all its majestic beauty: a dense concentration of hundreds of thousands of stars, gravitationally bound in an equilibrium as ancient as our own Galaxy.
M 13 lies about 25.000 light-years from Earth in the constellation of Hercules and is located in the halo of the Milky Way, far above the Galactic plane where the Sun resides. It was discovered in 1714 by Edmond Halley, the same astronomer commemorated by the famous comet bearing his name. The cluster has an estimated age of about 12 billion years — a true cosmic relic, a fossil of the Galaxy. Its stars are among the oldest known, with a chemical composition poor in heavy elements, a signature of an epoch when the Universe was still very young.
With a diameter of roughly 150 light-years, it appears as a tightly packed stellar sphere, yet its central density is so extreme that, if we were to live in that region, the night sky (assuming the existence of both a habitable planet and nighttime conditions there!) would be ablaze with an immense multitude of naked-eye stars.
By observing this image, obtained also thanks to the exceptionally dark skies of Manciano (GR), among the least affected by light pollution in the Italian peninsula, we can perceive not only the aesthetic wonder of the Universe, but also imagine how each star in M 13 stands as a silent witness to the evolution of our Galaxy, embedded in the vastness of space.
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