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| M56, A Globular Cluster, - this image cropped and reduced from the original photo. Click on photo to see the original |
| M56 is located high in the summer Milky Way within the summer triangle, about 1/3rd of the way from Vega toward Altair. It is not as bright as some of the other Messier globulars, but it is not too difficult to spot with 10x50 binoculars. Like most globular clusters, it has an independent motion relative to the general Milky Way rotation. It is heading toward us at about a hundred miles a second, but it's 32,900 light-years away, a little on the other side of the center of the Milky Way, so it won't get near us for a few billion years yet. Actually, the gravity around the center of the Milky Way will keep it from coming out here anyway. From here on earth its diameter measures visually a little more than 8.8 arc minutes, which at 33k light years away corresponds to about 85 light years across actually. |
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11"
Celestron HDEdge, F10, moddifiied Schmidt Cassegrain Telescope, Canon Ra camera, placed at the scope's prime focus |