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Submitted: Tue, 2017-09-05 09:54

NGC 4490

NGC 4490, also known as the Cocoon Galaxy, is a barred spiral galaxy in the constellation Canes Venatici. It lies at a distance of 25 million light years from Earth. It interacts with its smaller companion NGC 4485 and as a result is a starburst galaxy.

NGC 4490 is located 3/4° northwest of beta Canum Venaticorum and with apparent visual magnitude 9.8, can be observed with 15x100 binoculars. It is a member of Herschel 400 Catalogue. It belongs in Canes Venatici galaxy cloud II.

It was discovered by William Herschel in 1788. Two supernovae have been observed in NGC 4490, SN 1982F, and type II-P SN 2008ax, with peak magnitude 16.1.

NGC 4490
Submitted: Wed, 2017-08-16 11:16

M 12

Messier 12 or M 12 (also designated NGC 6218) is a globular cluster in the constellation of Ophiuchus. It was discovered by the French astronomer Charles Messier on May 30, 1764, who described it as a "nebula without stars".

Located roughly 3° in the sky from the cluster M10 and 5.6° from the star Lambda Ophiuchi, M12 is about 15,700 light-years (4,800 parsecs) from Earth and has a spatial diameter of about 75 light-years. The brightest stars of M12 are of 12th magnitude. With a Shapley-Sawyer rating of IX, it is rather loosely packed for a globular and was once thought to be a tightly concentrated open cluster. Thirteen variable stars have been recorded in this cluster. M12 is approaching us at a velocity of 16 km/s.

R = 11 * 400 sec. bin1, G = 11 * 460 sec. bin1, B = 11 * 560 sec. bin1.

PixInsight 1.8, Photoshop CC

M 12
Submitted: Tue, 2017-08-15 13:41

M 5

Messier 5 or M5 (also designated NGC 5904) is a globular cluster in the constellation Serpens.

M5 was discovered by the German astronomer Gottfried Kirch in 1702 when he was observing a comet. Charles Messier also noted it in 1764, but thought it a nebula without any stars associated with it. William Herschel was the first to resolve individual stars in the cluster in 1791, counting roughly 200.

Spanning 165 light-years in diameter, M5 is one of the largest known globular clusters. The gravitational sphere of influence of M5, (i.e. the volume of space in which stars are gravitationally bound to it rather than being torn away by the Milky Way's gravitational pull) has a radius of some 200 light-years.

At 13 billion years old, M5 is also one of the eldest globular clusters in the Milky Way Galaxy. Its distance is about 24,500 light-years from Earth, and it contains more than 100,000 stars, as many as 500,000 according to some estimates.

R = 9 * 600 sec. bin1, G = 9 * 700 sec. bin1, B = 9 * 800 sec. bin1.

PixInsight 1.8, Photoshop CC

M 5