Back to Globular Clusters Up to the Gallery of Astrophotography Home to astro.nightsky.at

M14

 

M14

 

The globular star cluster Messier 14 was discovered in June 1764 by Charles Messier only few days after his discoveries of M9 and M10, and included into his famous list of nebulous objects.

M14 belongs to a type of globular clusters which do not possess a sharply defined dense central condensation. Its light curve extends gently across the entire disk and drops at the outside edges continuously. Also, the cluster is slightly elliptical. The integrated spectral type of M14 is indicated as somewhere between G0 and F4, and the distance as about 30.000 light years. The latter value is rather uncertain due to large corrections needed for the dusty region of the Milky Way along the line of sight to M14. The cluster has a radial velocity of 130 km/s into our direction, and a diameter of about 100 light years.

M10 and M12 are two other prominent globular clusters in Ophiuchus.

Exposure Data
Back to Globular Clusters Up to the Gallery of Astrophotography Home to astro.nightsky.at

© 2010 Wolfgang Howurek