Finding the Hercules Cluster

Firstly, find Arcturus. The handle of the Big Dipper points to it. Once Arcturus has been located you need to find Vega. This is a bright blue Star which is part of the Summer Triangle. Now imagine a line stretching between the two stars and divide it in to three. One third in from Vega is a group of 4 stars called the Key Stone. The star on the nearest side to Arcturus is called Zeta. Once you have found this star just point your scope north a tad. Imaging In general you can get away with just one sub of stars and star clusters like this but it is always best to take a few more just in case there is some atmospheric turbulence also the length of the exposure and the ISO settings can be played with over 5 or 6 subs and you can pick the best one to edit or stack them all and see how they come out stacked. The longer the exposure the more stars you will capture that are hiding within the said cluster. The ISO should also be fairly high but not too high to introduce too much camera noise. These subs were taken at ISO 1600 but as I have mentioned, play about with the ISO settings and see what’s the best setting for your camera and star clusters. I only used Photoshop to add the title and copyright notice.

Hercules Cluster

Description: Globular Cluster Common Name: Hercules Cluster Messier Catalogue: 13 NGC: 6205 Constellation: Hercules Size: 20 Arc Minutes Visual Magnitude: +5.78 Distance: 23 Kilo Light Years

Specification

Date Taken: 18/04/2018 Telescope: Altair StarWave 70ED Diameter: 70mm Focal Length: 420mm Mount: SkyWatcher Star Adventurer Guiding?: No Camera: Canon EOS 1000D ISO: 400 Exposure Light Frames: 3 x 20 seconds Dark Frames: Bias Frames: Flat Frames: Stacking program: DeepSkyStacker Post Processing: Photoshop CS3