Rediscovered, Renamed, Reclassified

Esahubble_potw2128a_1024

esahubble_potw2128a July 12th, 2021

Credit:  ESA/Hubble & NASA, E. Noyola

This image shows the globular cluster NGC 6380, which lies around 35 000 light-years from Earth, in the constellation Scorpio (The Scorpion). The very bright star at the top of the image is HD 159073, which is only around 4000 light-years from Earth, making it a much nearer neighbour to Earth than NGC 6380. This image was taken with Hubbles Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3), which, as its name suggests, has a wide field of view, meaning that it can image relatively large areas of the sky in enormous detail. NGC 6380 is not a particularly exciting name, but it indicates that this cluster is catalogued in the New General Catalogue (NGC), which was originally compiled in 1888. This cluster has, however, been known by many other names. It was originally discovered by James Dunlop in 1826, and he rather immodestly named it Dun 538. Eight years later, in 1834, it was independently rediscovered by John Herschel and he (similarly immodestly) went on to name it H 3688. The cluster was re-rediscovered in 1959 in Paris by Pimi, who catalogued it as Tonantzintla 1 and who, to continue the pattern, also referred to it as Pimi 25. In addition to its colourful history of rediscovery, up until the 1950s NGC 6380 was thought to be an open cluster. It was A. D. Thackeray who realised that it was in fact a globular cluster. Nowadays, this cluster is reliably recognised in widely available catalogues as a globular cluster, and referred to simply as NGC 6380. Links Video of Rediscovered, Renamed, Reclassified

Provider: Hubble Space Telescope | ESA

Image Source: https://esahubble.org/images/potw2128a/

Curator: ESA/Hubble, Baltimore, MD, United States

Image Use Policy: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

Image Details

Image Type
Observation
Object Name
NGC 6380
Esahubble_potw2128a_128
 

Position Details

Position (ICRS)
RA = 17h 34m 27.4s
DEC = -39° 3’ 57.5”
Orientation
North is 139.8° CW
Field of View
2.6 x 2.0 arcminutes
Constellation
Scorpius

Color Mapping

  Telescope Spectral Band Wavelength
Red Hubble (WFC3) Optical (I) 814.0 nm
Green Hubble (WFC3) Optical (V) 606.0 nm
Blue Hubble (WFC3) Optical (V) 555.0 nm
Spectrum_base
Red
Green
Blue
Esahubble_potw2128a_1280
×
ID
potw2128a
Subject Category
Subject Name
NGC 6380
Credits
 ESA/Hubble & NASA, E. Noyola
Release Date
2021-07-12T06:00:00
Lightyears
Redshift
Reference Url
https://esahubble.org/images/potw2128a/
Type
Observation
Image Quality
Distance Notes
Facility
Hubble Space Telescope, Hubble Space Telescope, Hubble Space Telescope
Instrument
WFC3, WFC3, WFC3
Color Assignment
Red, Green, Blue
Band
Optical, Optical, Optical
Bandpass
I, V, V
Central Wavelength
814, 606, 555
Start Time
Integration Time
Dataset ID
None, None, None
Notes
Coordinate Frame
ICRS
Equinox
J2000
Reference Value
263.61431718752533, -39.06597393468606
Reference Dimension
3865.0, 2996.0
Reference Pixel
1932.5, 1498.0
Scale
-1.0997636635054742e-05, 1.0997636635054742e-05
Rotation
-139.76000000000107
Coordinate System Projection:
TAN
Quality
Full
FITS Header
Notes
Creator (Curator)
ESA/Hubble
URL
https://esahubble.org
Name
Email
Telephone
Address
ESA Office, Space Telescope Science Institute, 3700 San Martin Dr
City
Baltimore
State/Province
MD
Postal Code
21218
Country
United States
Rights
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
Publisher
ESA/Hubble
Publisher ID
esahubble
Resource ID
potw2128a
Metadata Date
2021-06-15T17:14:13+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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