Posted 6/14/06 M92

M92 is a pretty globular cluster in Hercules. It's apparent size of 14 arcminutes frames nicely in this 20x30 arcminute field. The moon was nearly full when this image was taken. One of the great things about globular clusters is that they have high surface brightness, and being composed of only stars allows for more aggressive treatment of background gradients than do nebulae or other, fainter extended objects. They are welcome targets when shooting under a full moon when typically only narrow band imaging can be attempted. Plus, theres just something cool about a tight blob of thousands of gravitationally bound stars.