CDK20

NGC 7023 with a CDK500 by Jeff Lovelace.

PK 136+05 with a CDK500 by Jeff Lovelace

CDK20″ @ F4.5. FLI camera. RGB: 45mins.

Possibly the finest globular cluster in the entire sky. Visible to the naked eye alongside the Small Magellanic Cloud, the massive ball of stars is 16,700 light years away from our solar system and is 120 light years in diameter. Unlike Omega Centauri (the skies bright cluster of this type) 47 Tucanae is much denser toward the core giving the cluster a “3D” appearance in the telescope. 

 CDK20″ with FLI-PL6303E camera. LRGB. L: 60mins. RGB: 5mins.

Located in the southern constellation Sculptor, this collisional ring galaxy was likely formed from a collision between two galaxies in the distant past. The blue ring of material is a region of active star formation dominated by hot blue stars. This ring of material is 150,000 light years in diameter which is larger than our own milky way galaxy. The Cartwheel Galaxy is 500 million light years away and glows at 15th magnitude.