I stumbled across a great website by Steve Gottlieb https://www.astronomy-mall.com/Adventures.In.Deep.Space/gcextra.htm who has spend some time studying the globular clusters of M31. Several hundred were found categorised and published first by Edwin Hubble in 1932, As many as 509 globulars in M31 have been catalogued based on spectra plates taken at Mauna Kea with the 3.6 meter Canada-France-Hawaii telescope, (Crampton et al, 1985), although recent work indicates that some of these are faint background galaxies. In any case, the M31 globular cluster system does appear to be more numerous than our own galaxy by roughly a 2:1 ratio. This important article provides identifications, positions, magnitudes, colours and radii although no finder charts are given.
A few nights ago I was testing the ASIAIR Pro auto focus and aligned on The Andromeda Galaxy. An hour later I stacked an hours worth of data and stretched it. I was truly amazed I was able to resolve 2' clusters @>mag15. Resolving deeper & longer is a passion of mine and my project a few years ago labelled hundreds of PGC galaxies in the Coma Cluster, this intrigued me from the outset and I had to see how many I could find in M110 (NGC205)
It didn't take long to find them all.
My image is on the left. incredible detail for just 1 hour of exposure. Spectacular rounds stars with of .42 arc second guiding accuracy.
My next project during the new lockdown will be to catalogue the Globulars in M31. I have found quite a few already but it looks like it may take a while.
No comments:
Post a Comment