Larger size jpg image available here: 1920x1280
M3
About this object
The large globular cluster, M3 is located in the constellation Canes Venatici. It lies 33.9 thousand light years distant and shines at a rather bright magnitude 6.2. M3 is nearly 18 arc minutes in size and contains roughly 500,000 stars. Its thought to be 8 billion years old.
Acquisition/Processing: This image was taken under nearly a full moon on 8 April 2017 through RGB filters un-binned using my 10” f5 astrograph and QSI 583 WSG camera. This results in a pixel scale of 0.88 arc seconds/pixel. Exposure times were 70min of Red, 40min of Green and 50min of Blue using 5min sub exposures resulting in 2hrs 40min of total exposure time. The individual RGB master frames were also combined into a synthetic luminance image. The synthetic luminance and RGB images were processed in PixInsight 1.8.
The large globular cluster, M3 is located in the constellation Canes Venatici. It lies 33.9 thousand light years distant and shines at a rather bright magnitude 6.2. M3 is nearly 18 arc minutes in size and contains roughly 500,000 stars. Its thought to be 8 billion years old.
Acquisition/Processing: This image was taken under nearly a full moon on 8 April 2017 through RGB filters un-binned using my 10” f5 astrograph and QSI 583 WSG camera. This results in a pixel scale of 0.88 arc seconds/pixel. Exposure times were 70min of Red, 40min of Green and 50min of Blue using 5min sub exposures resulting in 2hrs 40min of total exposure time. The individual RGB master frames were also combined into a synthetic luminance image. The synthetic luminance and RGB images were processed in PixInsight 1.8.
Image Details
- Optics : 10” f5 Astrograph
- Mount: Paramount MYT
- Camera: QSI 583
- Filters: Astrodon 36mm Gen II RGB E Series
- Exposure: RGB: 70:40:50 2.33hrs with 5min sub exposures
- Camera/Mount and Observatory Control: The Sky X, CCD Auto Pilot 5
- Focusing: @focus 2
- Guiding: SX Lodestar
- Processing: PixInsight 1.8
- Location: Stark Bayou Observatory, Ocean Springs, MS
- Date: April 8 2017
