M2, in the constellation of Aquarius, was first described by Jean-Dominique Maraldi in 1746, Charles Messier observed it in 1760 and William Herschel first resolved into stars in 1783. It is a large cluster of 150,000 stars and subtends 12 arc-minutes which corresponds to a diameter of about 130 light years at its distance of 37,500 light years. It is one of the older clusters associated with the Milky Way galaxy at about 13,000 million years.
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M2 captured with my LX200 fitted with a 0.33 focal reducer (focal length 800 mm). The diameter of the cluster is about 12 minutes of arc. The brightest stars are about magnitude 13 although the cluster as a whole has a magnitude of 6.5 putting it on the verge of naked-eye visibility in a totally dark sky. Date and Time: 13th December 2011 21:50 to 22:02 UT Camera: Starlight Xpress MX716 Telescope: LX200 with 0.33 focal reducer and Astronomik CLS filter Capture: star_mx7. 5 frames each at exposures of 30, 15, 8, 4, 2, and 1 second Processing: star_mx7. Dark frame subtracted, enhanced factor 25, black level. Registax 5. All frames stacked, histogram 0-170. Focus Magic. Blur 2 pixels, drift 2 pixels. |
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