NGC-104 Globular Cluster
(47 Tucanae)
This is an image of the second brightest globular cluster in the sky.
NGC104, also known as 47 Tucanae, is a sensational object. It is
situated near the Small Magellenic Cloud and is a truly stunning site when viewed in
the sharp optics of the LXD-75. This picture doesn't do any justice at all to the
real thing and for that I apologise. It's hard to capture correctly the
grandeur of 400,000 suns.
The real object just seems to "hang" there in the eyepiece like
a frizzy spray-painted snowball. "Spray-painted art" was the impression I
got when I first saw this object. Absolutely beautiful.
Scale of the cluster edge to edge is nearly 30 arc-minutes (one-half of one degree - about
the width of a full moon).
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