STARRY'S ASTRONOMY PICTURE OF THE DAY
The pictures posted are taken by myself from my Observatory in Coonabarabran using a digital SLR camera. I am happy to post astro pictures from others if they wish. Leave your email address in my guestbook.
M4 is a globular cluster (GC) found in the heart of the constellation Scorpio not far from the red supergiant Antares. It is the closest GC to the Earth at some mere 7200 light years.
GCs are spherical congragations 100 000 to 1 million stars all which formed from a common cloud of gas some 10 to 13 billion years ago. They lie in the halo (outside the spiral disk) of the Milky Way.
M4 should appear much brighter in the sky however it is obscured by much dust and gas that lies within the Milky Way. This GC is unusual as it appears to have a central bar. Most of the stars are in the centre within a distance of 16 light years - not so squeezy. M4 is also known for the first millisecond pulsar to be discovered. This is the remnant of a massive star that has collapsed down to the size of a city and spins at 300 times a second. That is some serious sh......
This picture was taken at prime focus using a 14" Meade LX200GPS Telescope and a canon 300D camera near Coonabarabran NSW Australia on 11/03/2005. The photo is made up of 9 exposues equivalent to an exposure time of 4.5 minutes. Processing was done using Maxim DL software..