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The Clouds of M13

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#1 Mel Bartels

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Posted 29 August 2024 - 11:28 PM

Exceptional transparency - SQM 21.8.

Newly resilvered primary (30 inch f2.7).

Astonishing IFN / galactic cirrus everywhere, broken into blotches and streaks.

M13 is embedded in countless faint stars at the limit of visibility and resolution that extend further than what's commonly seen.

A nice faint cluster of galaxies off to the east not in the sketch. NGC 6207 - pretty spiral structure.

Multiple nights, a number of hours. The sketch can be much improved, but it at least gives an idea of what I saw.

 

M13%20with%20the%2030%20inch.jpg

M13%20with%20the%2030%20inch.jpg

 

For comparison, a sketch made with my 25 inch f2.6 6 yrs ago.

M13%20NGC6207%20IC4617%20IFN%20with%2025

 

And with my 13 inch f3.0 8 yrs ago.

M13%20IFN.jpg

 

Mel Bartels

 


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#2 frank5817

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Posted 29 August 2024 - 11:49 PM

Mel,

 

Very impressive sketching. 

Looks like a great time with the re-silvered 30" mirror. 

Nice detail in NGC 6207.

 

frank



#3 bphaneuf

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Posted 30 August 2024 - 07:32 AM

Very impressive Mel. Your exceptional skill and instruments take us to things most have no idea exist, underscoring the complexity of what’s out there. Thanks for this substantive post!
-b


Edited by bphaneuf, 30 August 2024 - 07:33 AM.


#4 Herodotus

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Posted 30 August 2024 - 02:10 PM

Very nice.

#5 azure1961p

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Posted 30 August 2024 - 03:04 PM

Got any pro images showing this too?



#6 uwe_glahn

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Posted 31 August 2024 - 03:48 PM

Wow Mel, striking result. You were able to capture structure within the Galactic Cirrus, that's awesome.

 

And you confirm, that the hole around M 13 is not round but looks like a triangle.

 

My result with 6" is of course very modest but I'm happy that our results shows similar shapes.


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#7 Mel Bartels

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Posted 31 August 2024 - 06:39 PM

Uwe, I am very excited to see your drawing with a 6 inch of all scopes (!) You have the same general outline as I've found. Just that a 30 inch in wonderful skies provides detail in the IFN not visible with smaller apertures.

 

This was a big question I had when designing and building the 30 inch f2.7 --- what was I going to see?

 

The detail in large scale faint structures (eg, Sh-, LBN, LDN, IFN, etc) and the color in the brightest nebulae and especially the star colors (like all the red giants in M13 - I also have a simple spectroscope that's amazing) is a huge payoff that makes the two years grinding twin 30 inch mirrors and building the tube assembly and mounting worthwhile.

 

It would be so much fun to observe together. Probably not likely since we are half an Earth apart. Though one thing I've learned observing with Howard Banich, Jerry Oltion, and others, is that I can hardly get settled into an object without one of them exclaiming, "Wow, come see this!" Very distracting <very big smile>. And wonderfully social to share like that.

 

--- Mel Bartels



#8 uwe_glahn

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Posted 01 September 2024 - 08:21 AM

You definitely push the boundaries and bring the Galactic Cirrus on the table - for visuals and photographer. We can thank you enough for this major step.
And you use your telescope perfectly for what it is made for. A normally natural thing but for many people difficult to understand and realize.

 

And Mel, a joint observation is on the table and wish list for me. I hope it works one day.



#9 Distant Luminosity

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Posted 30 September 2024 - 11:18 AM

Hello,

 

when testing our new remote telescope in Spain (Trevinca Skies) we decided to start with a "classic" object, M13. Because I had photographed M15 earlier, which shows quite prominent IFN that is also captured by many astrophotographers, we did some research on IFN around M13 and also saw this thread, which motivated us to invest a lot of time in the object and try to find anything.

30h of exposure time under excellent Bortle 1 conditions during new moon later, we can show you this image of M13:

 

m13ifn.jpg

 

Of course in order to get an aesthetically pleasing result there has been a lot of non-linear processing involved in creating this image. But maybe it can give you some kind of reference to your observations. If requested, I can prepare and provide some starless luminance data for better comparison.

 

Some data about the telescope and observations you can also find here:

 

https://www.astrobin.com/n7c10u/

 

Cheers and ClearSkies from Germany,

Jan


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#10 Robin

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Posted 30 September 2024 - 03:33 PM

Hi Jan,

 

What a very, very interesting result! And good to see that you post images here on Cloudynights!
This is the first image of the galactic cirrus around M13 that I have ever seen! Finally someone went for it.

Although I haven't tried to observe this one yet (supposedly the field of view isn't large enough with my 20" f/4 Dobsonian, I've only seen a few other IFN such as Volcano Nebula and LBN 698), I wonder how difficult it was to capture it photographically in comparison to other IFN?

 

Clear skies

Robin



#11 Mel Bartels

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Posted 30 September 2024 - 10:48 PM

A 20 inch f4 at low power very wide field in dark skies should catch the M13 IFN. I've showed this IFN visually to dozens and dozens of amateurs over the years. I judge it a medium bright IFN. Many are brighter, many are fainter, but this IFN is relatively easy to find and observe visually because of M13. The big thing is getting use to no-boundary nebulae - blobs and broad streaks. At first you'll see brightenings here and there, then you can go deeper.

I am impressed that Uwe saw so much of it with a 6 inch! Score: observer 1, aperture nil.

I'll say in comparison that many Sharpless are about the same brightness; also dwarf galaxies tend to be equally matched to adjoining IFN.

 

I hadn't seen an image of M15 with IFN until just now. I looked on Astrobin and found several.

Here's a sketch I made of M15 with nearby IFN back in 2015 - 9 yrs ago. If you rotate it CCW by ~90 deg it matches well with this Astrobin image.

 

http://blob:https://...96-5c99ec89c97a

and

https://app.astrobin...==&i=zkfk4h&r=B

 

My story on how I came to observe and sketch ~ 150+ IFN: https://bbastrodesig...els Ghosts.html

 

M15withMilkyWay.jpg

 

Mel Bartels


Edited by Mel Bartels, 30 September 2024 - 10:56 PM.

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#12 Mel Bartels

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Posted 01 October 2024 - 06:41 PM

Through the eyepiece the IFN are much broader and smoother; not the intricate detail seen in the digital image. That seems to be the case with most every sketch matchup with digital image that I've found. 

Definitely much larger scopes are needed to visually get at fine IFN detail.

For example, my Barnard Galaxy drawing https://www.cloudyni...f29/?p=13656717 

compare to a digital image of Barnard's Ghost https://www.cloudyni...axy/?p=13602341

 

I found an image of M13 that hints at the broad IFN https://app.astrobin.com/i/fkclin

 

Mel Bartels


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#13 MrVolcanoes22

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Posted 04 October 2024 - 02:17 PM

My mind has been blown by this post. Since looking at M13 through a 12" at Mt Pinos the aperture fever has started to hit. I gaslit myself into deciding I didn't need anything more than I have, but the detail you could see, (and beautifully sketch) is not helping! I didn't even think it's possible to see IFN without cameras until this post. Fantastic!


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