ASTRO: M3 Have I lost my mind imaging something big and bright?

In organizing my hard drive a few months ago I noticed that somehow I'd
not managed to image M3 with the 14" scope. That had to be corrected.
This is the result.

M3 is a globular star cluster in Canes Venatici. It is considered one
of the showpiece globular star clusters. At about 34 thousand light
years it is a rather distant one to be so famous. It contains a large
number of variable (mostly RR Lyrae) stars. The cluster is quite blue
due to the large number of "Blue Stragglers" that it contains. It is
thought that most globular clusters formed at about the same time as our
galaxy, 10 billion years ago, and that its stars all formed at that
time. Yet these "Blue Straglers" appear to be young stars as stars of
their color would live very short lives compared to the 10 billion year
age of the cluster. There are several explanations of how these come to
be. One is the merger of two or more stars, another is one star
stripping gas from another raising its mass enough to turn it blue,
still another says the outer shell of a helium burning star has been
stripped away exposing the super hot blue core. Maybe all are involved.
With such closely packed stars it is very difficult to get a good
spectrum of these stars which would help to understand this issue.

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=11x5' (to prevent saturation) RGB=2x10',
STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Rick
--
Correct domain name is arvig and it is net not com. Prefix is correct.
Third character is a zero rather than a capital "Oh".

looking good!

I am not at all confident that the blue straggler theory is what accounts
for them

As it turns out once hydrogen burning has transitioned to helium burning,
you get a lot of blue stars

the APOD that mentioned the blue stragglers has apparently fostered this
tale.... check Joseph Silk's "The Big Bang" to read about the high
populations of blue stars in Globs.

see this outtake from Silk's book:

http://tinyurl.com/m9sbul


or this for the direct link

http://books.google.com/books?id=TQH...bular+clusters



"Rick Johnson" wrote in message
ster.com...
In organizing my hard drive a few months ago I noticed that somehow I'd
not managed to image M3 with the 14" scope. That had to be corrected.
This is the result.

M3 is a globular star cluster in Canes Venatici. It is considered one
of the showpiece globular star clusters. At about 34 thousand light
years it is a rather distant one to be so famous. It contains a large
number of variable (mostly RR Lyrae) stars. The cluster is quite blue
due to the large number of "Blue Stragglers" that it contains. It is
thought that most globular clusters formed at about the same time as our
galaxy, 10 billion years ago, and that its stars all formed at that
time. Yet these "Blue Straglers" appear to be young stars as stars of
their color would live very short lives compared to the 10 billion year
age of the cluster. There are several explanations of how these come to
be. One is the merger of two or more stars, another is one star
stripping gas from another raising its mass enough to turn it blue,
still another says the outer shell of a helium burning star has been
stripped away exposing the super hot blue core. Maybe all are involved.
With such closely packed stars it is very difficult to get a good
spectrum of these stars which would help to understand this issue.

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=11x5' (to prevent saturation) RGB=2x10',
STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Rick
--
Correct domain name is arvig and it is net not com. Prefix is correct.
Third character is a zero rather than a capital "Oh".

I had that in the back of my mind but when I found the APOD story I went
with it. Mythbusters time but how do they test that. Though a SN would
be their biggest bang ever!

I have my first clear night in weeks and the sky is 70% covered in
Northern Lights. I thought solar activity was dead. I started an
image. Back ground was normal 240 on first one. By the 5th it was
30,000! They are mostly featureless. See a faint hint of a few rays
but they quickly fade. No color to my eye but the filters say it is
strong in green and pretty strong in blue with significant red. Since
it ebbs anf flows that is really meaningless. I don't have a digital
camera with night sensitivity. Gotta get one!

Rick


Richard Crisp wrote:
looking good!

I am not at all confident that the blue straggler theory is what accounts
for them

As it turns out once hydrogen burning has transitioned to helium burning,
you get a lot of blue stars

the APOD that mentioned the blue stragglers has apparently fostered this
tale.... check Joseph Silk's "The Big Bang" to read about the high
populations of blue stars in Globs.

see this outtake from Silk's book:

http://tinyurl.com/m9sbul


or this for the direct link

http://books.google.com/books?id=TQH...bular+clusters



"Rick Johnson" wrote in message
ster.com...
In organizing my hard drive a few months ago I noticed that somehow I'd
not managed to image M3 with the 14" scope. That had to be corrected.
This is the result.

M3 is a globular star cluster in Canes Venatici. It is considered one
of the showpiece globular star clusters. At about 34 thousand light
years it is a rather distant one to be so famous. It contains a large
number of variable (mostly RR Lyrae) stars. The cluster is quite blue
due to the large number of "Blue Stragglers" that it contains. It is
thought that most globular clusters formed at about the same time as our
galaxy, 10 billion years ago, and that its stars all formed at that
time. Yet these "Blue Straglers" appear to be young stars as stars of
their color would live very short lives compared to the 10 billion year
age of the cluster. There are several explanations of how these come to
be. One is the merger of two or more stars, another is one star
stripping gas from another raising its mass enough to turn it blue,
still another says the outer shell of a helium burning star has been
stripped away exposing the super hot blue core. Maybe all are involved.
With such closely packed stars it is very difficult to get a good
spectrum of these stars which would help to understand this issue.

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=11x5' (to prevent saturation) RGB=2x10',
STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Rick
--
Correct domain name is arvig and it is net not com. Prefix is correct.
Third character is a zero rather than a capital "Oh".

shouldn't be hard to do stellar spectra to see if they burn helium or
not....

I've not see a good aurora from here in years but we did get some back in
2001...


"Rick Johnson" wrote in message
ster.com...
I had that in the back of my mind but when I found the APOD story I went
with it. Mythbusters time but how do they test that. Though a SN would be
their biggest bang ever!

I have my first clear night in weeks and the sky is 70% covered in
Northern Lights. I thought solar activity was dead. I started an image.
Back ground was normal 240 on first one. By the 5th it was 30,000! They
are mostly featureless. See a faint hint of a few rays but they quickly
fade. No color to my eye but the filters say it is strong in green and
pretty strong in blue with significant red. Since it ebbs anf flows that
is really meaningless. I don't have a digital camera with night
sensitivity. Gotta get one!

Rick


Richard Crisp wrote:
looking good!

I am not at all confident that the blue straggler theory is what accounts
for them

As it turns out once hydrogen burning has transitioned to helium burning,
you get a lot of blue stars

the APOD that mentioned the blue stragglers has apparently fostered this
tale.... check Joseph Silk's "The Big Bang" to read about the high
populations of blue stars in Globs.

see this outtake from Silk's book:

http://tinyurl.com/m9sbul


or this for the direct link

http://books.google.com/books?id=TQH...bular+clusters



"Rick Johnson" wrote in message
ster.com...
In organizing my hard drive a few months ago I noticed that somehow I'd
not managed to image M3 with the 14" scope. That had to be corrected.
This is the result.

M3 is a globular star cluster in Canes Venatici. It is considered one
of the showpiece globular star clusters. At about 34 thousand light
years it is a rather distant one to be so famous. It contains a large
number of variable (mostly RR Lyrae) stars. The cluster is quite blue
due to the large number of "Blue Stragglers" that it contains. It is
thought that most globular clusters formed at about the same time as our
galaxy, 10 billion years ago, and that its stars all formed at that
time. Yet these "Blue Straglers" appear to be young stars as stars of
their color would live very short lives compared to the 10 billion year
age of the cluster. There are several explanations of how these come to
be. One is the merger of two or more stars, another is one star
stripping gas from another raising its mass enough to turn it blue,
still another says the outer shell of a helium burning star has been
stripped away exposing the super hot blue core. Maybe all are involved.
With such closely packed stars it is very difficult to get a good
spectrum of these stars which would help to understand this issue.

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=11x5' (to prevent saturation) RGB=2x10',
STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Rick
--
Correct domain name is arvig and it is net not com. Prefix is correct.
Third character is a zero rather than a capital "Oh".

Very good image Rick. Actually it is a nice change to image something bright
after going for the faint stuff for a while.

Stefan

"Rick Johnson" schrieb im Newsbeitrag
ster.com...
In organizing my hard drive a few months ago I noticed that somehow I'd
not managed to image M3 with the 14" scope. That had to be corrected.
This is the result.

M3 is a globular star cluster in Canes Venatici. It is considered one
of the showpiece globular star clusters. At about 34 thousand light
years it is a rather distant one to be so famous. It contains a large
number of variable (mostly RR Lyrae) stars. The cluster is quite blue
due to the large number of "Blue Stragglers" that it contains. It is
thought that most globular clusters formed at about the same time as our
galaxy, 10 billion years ago, and that its stars all formed at that
time. Yet these "Blue Straglers" appear to be young stars as stars of
their color would live very short lives compared to the 10 billion year
age of the cluster. There are several explanations of how these come to
be. One is the merger of two or more stars, another is one star
stripping gas from another raising its mass enough to turn it blue,
still another says the outer shell of a helium burning star has been
stripped away exposing the super hot blue core. Maybe all are involved.
With such closely packed stars it is very difficult to get a good
spectrum of these stars which would help to understand this issue.

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=11x5' (to prevent saturation) RGB=2x10',
STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Rick
--
Correct domain name is arvig and it is net not com. Prefix is correct.
Third character is a zero rather than a capital "Oh".