globular
esiegel | November 25, 2013"Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old." -Franz Kafka
The night sky is our window into the Universe beyond the Solar System, and in some cases, even beyond our own galaxy! Perhaps the oldest useful collection of deep-sky objects, the Messier catalogue showcases 110 of the most prominent night sky wonders, a full 42 of which are located beyond our own galaxy. Today, for Messier Monday, let's take a look at one of the true rarities of the Messier catalogue: a globular cluster that's not a part of our own galaxy!
Image credit: Al Kelly of http://www.kellysky.net/; images…
esiegel | September 23, 2013"I would rather have one article a day of this sort; and these ten or twenty lines might readily represent a whole day's hard work in the way of concentrated, intense thinking and revision, polish of style, weighing of words." -Joseph Pulitzer
When it comes to the Messier objects, though, it isn't words that get concentrated; its collections of stars, gas, dust and more! So welcome to another edition of Messier Monday, where we take an in-depth look at one of the 110 deep-sky objects that make up the Messier catalogue. Some of these objects are only a few light-years wide, containing just a…
esiegel | August 26, 2013"A little knowledge that acts is worth infinitely more than much knowledge that is idle." -Khalil Gibran
It’s time again for another Messier Monday! The Messier Catalogue was the original comprehensive and accurate catalogue of fixed, deep-sky objects visible to any dedicated (northern hemisphere) skywatcher with even the most primitive of astronomical equipment. Over the centuries, as our understanding of what we're looking at has improved, these 110 celestial wonders have provided classic examples of astronomical phenomena ranging from stellar corpses to new star-forming regions, from young…
esiegel | August 12, 2013"There is an ancient saying among men that you cannot thoroughly understand the life of mortals before the man has died, then only can you call it good or bad." -Sophocles
Imagine looking up at the night sky -- able to survey the full depths of space -- with eyes the size of saucers instead of our paltry, few-millimeter-sized pupils. What do you suppose you'd see? Well, here on Messier Monday, we take a journey through the first catalogue to effectively do just that! Charles Messier catalogued, over many years in the late 18th Century, 110 deep-sky objects, each unique, and each telling its…
esiegel | June 17, 2013“God put me on this earth to accomplish a certain number of things. Right now I am so far behind that I will never die.” -Bill Watterson
Welcome back to another Messier Monday, only here on Starts With A Bang! With each new Monday, we take an in-depth look at a prominently visible random object from Messier's catalogue of 110 deep-sky curiosities, objects that range from stellar corpses to star-forming regions, to open clusters, globular clusters, distant galaxies, and even a few anomalies!
Image credit: Wikimedia Commons users Jim Cornmell and Zeimusu.
The objects in Messier's catalogue…
esiegel | May 20, 2013“The Milky Way is nothing else but a mass of innumerable stars planted together in clusters.” -Galileo Galilei
Welcome back to another Messier Monday here on Starts With a Bang! With 110 deep-sky objects making it up, the Messier Catalogue is the first comprehensive, accurate catalogue of faint (but not too faint) fixtures in the night sky. Each object tells its own unique tale, and is visible to amateur and professional skywatchers alike with even the simplest of equipment. Many of these objects were discovered by Charles Messier himself (or his assistant, Pierre Méchain), while others go…
esiegel | April 22, 2013"[T]he entire globe will soon be wrapped in a glowing envelope through which none of the magic of the Universe can be seen by the naked eye." -George Eslinger
Welcome to still another Messier Monday here on Starts With A Bang! Each Monday, we highlight a different one of the 110 deep-sky objects that make up the Messier Catalogue, the first accurate catalogue of more than 100 extended, deep-sky wonders strewn across the expansive night sky!
Image credit: ScienceSouth -- Tony's Astronomy Corner.
Tonight, the Moon is nearly full, which means the largest natural source of light pollution at…
esiegel | March 18, 2013"Every star may be a sun to someone." -Carl Sagan
Welcome back to yet another Messier Monday! Each week, we highlight one of the 110 deep-sky objects that make up the Messier catalogue: Charles Messier's legacy to comet-hunters and amateur astronomers, pointing out some of the most easily visible deep-sky objects as seen from our vantage point on Earth.
Image credit: Yvett Bass (M1-M55) and Josh Sanford (M56-M110), via Dan Bruton of SFASU.
Once-a-year, around the new Moon nearest to the vernal equinox, many amateur astronomers around the world attempt to view all 110 objects in the same…
esiegel | February 18, 2013"If the sight of the blue skies fills you with joy, if the simplest things of nature have a message that you understand, rejoice, for your soul is alive." -Eleanora Duse
Welcome to another Messier Monday, where each week we take a look at one of the 110 deep-sky objects that make up the Messier Catalogue! One of the most common type of object in this catalogue is the globular cluster -- referred to by Messier as a round nebula (since he couldn't resolve them into individual stars) -- of which there are 29 in the catalogue.
Image credit: Deep Sky Observing, http://www.deepskyobserving.com…
esiegel | December 31, 2012"I'd rather be a could-be if I cannot be an are;
because a could-be is a maybe who is reaching for a star.
I'd rather be a has-been than a might-have-been, by far;
for a might have-been has never been, but a has was once an are." -Milton Berle
Welcome to Messier Monday, where we pick one of the 110 spectacular deep-sky objects of the Messier catalogue each week and learn a little more about it.
Image credit: Paul Gitto's Messier Marathon.
This week, to usher in 2013, I'd like to take a look at Messier 13, the Great Globular Cluster in Hercules, which is visible to northern skywatchers both…
esiegel | November 12, 2012"When your friends begin to flatter you on how young you look, it's a sure sign you're getting old." -Mark Twain
Welcome to yet another installment of Messier Monday, where each week, I'll pick one of the 110 Messier Objects -- deep-sky objects catalogued to avoid confusion for comet hunters -- to highlight for you.
Image(s) credit: SEDS -- http://messier.seds.org/.
So far, we've taken a look at a supernova remnant, a young open star cluster, and an active star-forming nebula, a testament to the great diversity of these faint, fuzzy objects that might be easily confused with a comet. Today…
catdynamics | October 3, 2012“If... then my old theory is completely toast,” says astrophysicist Steinn Sigurdsson of Pennsylvania State University. “This is a really nice piece of work.”
Nice Nature paper coming out tomorrow by Jay Strader et al
on a pair of flat spectrum ultra-faint radio sources in the core of M22.
The sources are consistent with being ~ 20 solar mass black holes, accreting at a low rate from, well, something.
Maybe...
Best candidates yet in the Milky Way globulars.
M22 has a somewhat unusual structure (massive fluffy core) in a way that several authors have suggested might be a signature of black…