A little over a month ago, I posted one of my images of Messier 13, the great globular cluster in Hercules that I got one night through my telescope.  Well, thanks to a clear night last week and more astrophotography experience, I managed to get a far better shot.  I still have a lot to learn about astrophotography and some equipment upgrades to make to get even better pictures (I just ordered a polar scope for my setup right before I started writing this post so that should help with my images starting on Saturday when it arrives) but I am really exited with my progress so far.  When you compare last month’s shot to this one, there is a HUGE difference!  I love that you can now see the colors of the different stars too!

Here is a little bit of a description of what you see in the picture above followed by the details of the setup and the shot for those curious to know what I used to take this shot and how I took it.

Messier 13 (M13) is about 145 light-years in diameter, and it is composed of several hundred thousand stars. M13 is 25,100 light-years away from Earth and was discovered by Edmond Halley in 1714, and catalogued by Charles Messier on June 1, 1764.

Details:

M13 – The Great Globular Cluster in Hercules.

Date: October 7th, 2016.

Celestron 9.25 Schmidt-Cassegrain OTA

Celestron AVX mount

Canon Ti1 (modified full spectrum)

Orion Starshoot Autoguider

Lights: 15 x 30 sec, 10 x 45 sec, 7 x 60 sec, 6 x 90 sec, 5 x 180 sec, ISO 800 (Total Exposure: 46 Minutes)

Darks: 8 x 30 sec, 5 x 45 sec, 5 x 60 sec, 3 x 90 sec, 3 x 180 sec.

Stacked in Deep Sky Stacker

Processed in Registax

If you are into astrophotography and have some great shots of your own, let me know in the comments below because I’d love to see some of your pictures!

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