A classic of the sky: Messier 13

Messier 13 (M13) in constellation Hercules is a globular cluster, among the most widely known, observed and imaged in the northern hemisphere. So it is certainly nothing new: however, my archives lacked a decent shot of this object, so it was high time to fix that.

Globular clusters are spheroidal concentrations of stars which are found in almost all galaxies. They are mostly distributed in the galactic halo, the volume that lies farthest from the galactic plane, and are generally made up of relatively old stars.

This image was acquired from Promiod (AO, Italy) on 18 June 2025 through a 10-inch GSO RC with an AP CCDT67 reducer, a Touptek 2600M CMOS camera with a filter wheel and an Optolong RGB filter set. Exposure was 6 x 10 mins per filter, for a total of 3 hours. In the field of view, right above M13, lies IC 4617, a spiral galaxy 0.9’ x 0.2’ across shining at magnitude 12.6.

Enjoy! :-)