M13 in Hercules

My first image taken of M13

The Hercules Globular Cluster, also known as M13, is a densely packed ball of stars over 20,000 light-years away. Look overhead on a summer evening at the constellation Hercules. If you have very sharp eyes and a very dark sky you will see what appears to be a fuzzy "star". What you are actually looking at is more than 100,000 stars packed into a space about 100 to 150 light years across. One of the best theories is that Globular Clusters are the central cores of galaxies which were eaten up by our own Milky Way Galaxy. To find M13, look overhead after dark and seek out the "keystone" shape made by the four brightest stars of Hercules. You will find the globular cluster just off of the line connecting two of the stars . M13 is visible to sharp eyes in dark skies but will be resolved into a fuzzy round object in binoculars. Those of us with telescopes will see some of the individual stars that make up the cluster. Once you've found the Hercules Cluster, you can look for another similar object, the M92 Globular Cluster near by. These are just a couple of the many fine objects visible each summer.