M13 - Adds lustre to your cluster

The Giant Globular Cluster M13 in the constellation Hercules
(note the galaxy centre right)

Astronomers, even those with bad backs, love a warm clear night.  I took these photographs of M13 after midnight and from my backyard using my 127mm Meade refracting telescope and my Canon DSLR.

M13 is about 145 light-years in diameter, and it is composed of several hundred thousand stars, the brightest of which is thevariable star V11 with an apparent magnitude of 11.95. M13 is 25,100 light-years away from Earth. 

M13 was discovered by Edmond Halley in 1714, and catalogued by Charles Messier on June 1, 1764.

It is located at right ascension 16^h 41.7^m and declination +36° 28'. With an apparent magnitude of 5.8, it is barely visible with thenaked eye on a very clear night. Its diameter is about 23 arc minutes and it is readily viewable in small telescopes. Nearby isNGC 6207, a 12th magnitude edge-on galaxy that lies 28 arc minutes directly north east. A small galaxy, IC 4617, lies halfway between NGC 6207 and M13, north-northeast of the large globular cluster's center.

(Thanks to Wikipedia)

Enlarged view of the globular cluster