Fall Season Star Cluster
M92 captured with my unmodified Canon EOS Rebel T6 and WO RedCat 51 II telescope
When the leaves start to fall, look to the skies for many a brilliant DSO to image! I decided to check out Messier 92, a globular star cluster in the constellation Hercules!
M92 is a giant ball of stars orbiting our home galaxy, and is generally visible to the naked eye under favorable viewing conditions.
Okay, I will admit this article’s title is a bit deceiving since M92 is best observed during the summer months. Nonetheless, you can still get great shots of this bright cluster well into the Autumn months where I live, so I figured why not?
M92 is not the brightest cluster in the Hercules neighborhood but its not far off with an apparent magnitude of 6.3. Another impressive star cluster in the constellation Hercules is M13 with an apparent magnitude of 5.8. Due to its brightness, M13 tends to be a more appealing target for armature astronomers, but hey it’s not a contest.
As you can see in the Stellarium screen shot below, star hopping to find M92 is pretty straightforward if you can locate Vega and the orange giant, Eltanin in the constellation Drago.
Image credit: Courtesy of Stellarium
Orion might steal the show during the winter months, but next summer and early fall, look to the globular star clusters for your next brilliant astro target!
Fun Fact!
According to NASA, the M92 star cluster contains about 330,000 stars total! You can read more about the Hubble Telescope’s observations of M92 here or in this entry of Messier Objects.