A Distant backwater of the Milky Way

Esahubble_potw1023a_1024

esahubble_potw1023a September 27th, 2010

Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA

This bright spray of stars in the small but evocative constellation of Delphinus (the Dolphin) is the globular cluster NGC 6934. Globular clusters are large balls of (typically) a few hundred thousand ancient stars that exist on the edges of galaxies. Lying 50 000 light-years from Earth, in the outer reaches of our Milky Way galaxy, NGC 6934 is home to some of the most distant stars still to be part of our galactic system in a sense, it is a far-flung suburb to the Milky Ways city centre. NGC 6934 was first seen by William Herschel in the late eighteenth century. He classified it as a bright nebula and was not able to resolve it into stars. The cluster is not bright enough to see with the naked eye, and even in ideal conditions it is very difficult to view with binoculars. However, it is a popular target for amateur astronomers as it can easily be observed using relatively inexpensive telescopes. Broadcaster Patrick Moore, presenter of BBC TVs The Sky at Night for more than 50 years, included this cluster in his Caldwell catalogue of celestial objects that amateur astronomers should look out for.NGC 6934s faintness is down to its distance not how bright it really is. With its many thousands of stars, the cluster is no minnow. The fact that the huge core of our galaxy dwarfs it, along with the other 150 or so globular clusters that orbit the Milky Ways galactic centre, is a reminder of the breathtaking scale of the cosmos.This picture was taken with the Wide Field Channel of the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescopes Advanced Camera for Surveys. It was created from images taken through filters F814W (near infrared) and F606W (orange), coloured red and blue respectively. The exposure times were 29 minutes per filter, and the field of view is 3.3 arcminutes across.

Provider: Hubble Space Telescope | ESA

Image Source: http://www.spacetelescope.org/images/potw1023a/

Curator: ESA/Hubble, Garching bei München, Germany

Image Use Policy: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

Image Details

Image Type
Observation
Object Name
NGC 6934
Subject - Milky Way
Star > Grouping > Cluster > Globular
Esahubble_potw1023a_128
 

Position Details

Position (ICRS)
RA = 20h 34m 11.4s
DEC = 7° 24’ 16.8”
Orientation
North is up
Field of View
3.3 x 3.3 arcminutes
Constellation
Delphinus

Color Mapping

  Telescope Spectral Band Wavelength
Blue Hubble (ACS) Optical (V) -
Green Hubble (ACS) Optical (Pseudogreen (V+I)) -
Red Hubble (ACS) Infrared (I) -
Esahubble_potw1023a_1280
×
ID
potw1023a
Subject Category
B.3.6.4.2  
Subject Name
NGC 6934
Credits
ESA/Hubble & NASA
Release Date
2010-09-27T10:00:00
Lightyears
Redshift
Reference Url
http://www.spacetelescope.org/images/potw1023a/
Type
Observation
Image Quality
Distance Notes
Facility
Hubble Space Telescope, Hubble Space Telescope, Hubble Space Telescope
Instrument
ACS, ACS, ACS
Color Assignment
Blue, Green, Red
Band
Optical, Optical, Infrared
Bandpass
V, Pseudogreen (V+I), I
Central Wavelength
Start Time
Integration Time
Dataset ID
Notes
Coordinate Frame
ICRS
Equinox
J2000
Reference Value
308.547539695, 7.40465808175
Reference Dimension
4001.0, 4002.0
Reference Pixel
2000.5, 2001.0
Scale
-1.38832156814e-05, 1.38832156814e-05
Rotation
0
Coordinate System Projection:
TAN
Quality
Full
FITS Header
Notes
Creator (Curator)
ESA/Hubble
URL
http://www.spacetelescope.org/
Name
Email
Telephone
Address
Karl-Schwarzschild-Strasse 2
City
Garching bei München
State/Province
Postal Code
D-85748
Country
Germany
Rights
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
Publisher
ESA/Hubble
Publisher ID
esahubble
Resource ID
potw1023a
Metadata Date
2010-08-16T18:26:51+02:00
Metadata Version
1.1
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Detailed color mapping information coming soon...

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There is no distance meta data in this image.

 

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