Comparing M13 Photos [Messier 13]

M13 or the Great Globular Cluster in Hercules is an astronomy favorite. It is 145 light years in diameter and contains approximately 300,000 stars. I’ve recently focused two telescopes on the region of our galaxy. Of course one is the RRRT (Rapid Response Robotic Telescope) located at Fan Mountain in Charlottesville, VA and the other is my modified Orion Astroview 6 telescope. Let’s begin with the professional telescope.

Up Close & Personal

With more than 1 hour of data collected, it looks impressive. The detail in this M13 photo is what garnered a more than 1.0k up votes on Reddit (Go Hoos!) in less than 24 hours. When I chose to attempt this photo, I decided to not incorporate color. My mistake, bruh! It would have made it that much more appealing. In my young post processing career, I wanted to do M13 justice.

By justice, I mean showing off the capability of the camera and telescope and exposing the great many parts of this globular cluster. Pay close attention to the stars in the center of the cluster. It’s not a large blurr. Zoom in and you can count them. Ok some of them.

Finally a lot about this photo was simple. I can run the telescope from my recliner hundreds of miles away. The calibration frames are automatically done and applied to the photos before I receive them. What more could you want from an image taking session?

Familiar Surroundings

At home it’s different. I have to plan my imaging session early in the day and begin execution of that plan just before sunset. Capturing M13 was no different. Having chosen the telescope, the timing for capturing the photo was the terrible. There was an 85% Waxing Gibbous Moon out. In addition, my closest neighbor left their lights on with brand new bulbs. I was so bright out, my shadow had shadows.

Change to the plans, I cleaned off my Orion Moon and Skyglow Light Pollution Filter and began capturing 2 minute sub frames. The result was actually better than expected. The light pollution filter allowed enough light from the stars to enter the camera. While the center is a blob of light, the detail is excellent with the outer stars. This one also has the natural color which shows the vast quantity of blue stars in the cluster. I also cropped the photo to explore the detail.

The post processing was more complicated and took more than 1 day to complete. The reward I believe is a comparable photo to the RRRT. Certainly a bit less detail, but just as stunning visually. What do you think?

Thank you for your time and comments are always welcome. Clear skies!