{"id":36,"date":"2004-10-03T21:00:00","date_gmt":"2004-10-03T21:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/perezmedia.net\/beltofvenus\/2004\/10\/03\/m54\/"},"modified":"2021-11-27T18:46:11","modified_gmt":"2021-11-27T18:46:11","slug":"m54","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/perezmedia.net\/beltofvenus\/2004\/10\/03\/m54\/","title":{"rendered":"Messier 54"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

Observation Notes:<\/b><\/p>\n

This is the most eastern of 3 globular clusters I observed at the base of the Sagittaruis teapot on 10\/3\/04. The others were M69 and M70, and M54 was brighter than both of those, with a sharper, more condensed nucleus. I couldn’t resolve any stars, even with the 10 mm eyepiece (120X). After some time spent observing, it seemed like I could see a single starlike point to the N of center. But not sure. It might have been a foreground star, or your basic eyestrain illusion.<\/p>\n

Factoids:<\/b><\/p>\n

While M54 is a visual neighbor to globular clusters M69 and M70, recent findings indicate that is probably not a member of our galaxy at all, but a member of the newly discovered Sagittarius Dwarf Elliptical Galaxy. This would put M54’s distance at 87,000 light years–nearly 3 times farther out than M69 and M70–making it one of the most luminous globular clusters known with a luminosity of 850,000 suns. At that distance, its diameter would be an immense 300 light years. It is moving away from us at 142 km\/sec. Because of its great distance, even large amature scopes cannot resolve it into individual stars, although it can give a mottled appearance from knots of stars within the cluster. These can appear stellar, so that might explain the one starlike point I noticed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Subject<\/b><\/td>\nM54\/NGC 6715<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Classification<\/b><\/td>\nGlobular Cluster<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Position<\/b><\/td>\nSagittarius [RA: 18:55.1 \/ Dec: -30:29]*<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Size*<\/b><\/td>\n12′<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Brightness*<\/b><\/td>\n7.6<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Date\/Time<\/b><\/td>\n10\/3\/04 – 9:00 PM<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Observing Loc.<\/b><\/td>\nFlagstaff, AZ – Home<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Instrument<\/b><\/td>\nOrion SVP 6LT Reflector (150 mm dia.\/1200 mm F\/L)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Eyepieces\/Mag.<\/b><\/td>\n32 mm (37X); 10 mm (120X)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Seeing<\/b><\/td>\n5\/10<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Transparency<\/b><\/td>\nMag 4.5<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

* Based on published data.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

M054<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,17,18,19,20,21,22,23,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-deep-sky","category-globular-cluster","category-messier","category-sg-deep-sky","category-sg-globular-cluster","category-sg-messier","category-sg-star-cluster","category-sgc-sagittarius","category-sketch-gallery"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":35,"url":"https:\/\/perezmedia.net\/beltofvenus\/2004\/10\/03\/m70\/","url_meta":{"origin":36,"position":0},"title":"Messier 70","author":"jperez1690","date":"October 3, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"M070A","rel":"","context":"In "Deep Sky"","block_context":{"text":"Deep Sky","link":"https:\/\/perezmedia.net\/beltofvenus\/category\/deep-sky\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":253,"url":"https:\/\/perezmedia.net\/beltofvenus\/2006\/05\/24\/m13_hercules_gl\/","url_meta":{"origin":36,"position":1},"title":"Messier 13 – Hercules Globular Cluster","author":"jperez1690","date":"May 24, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"M013","rel":"","context":"In "Deep Sky"","block_context":{"text":"Deep Sky","link":"https:\/\/perezmedia.net\/beltofvenus\/category\/deep-sky\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":31,"url":"https:\/\/perezmedia.net\/beltofvenus\/2004\/10\/03\/m69_1\/","url_meta":{"origin":36,"position":2},"title":"Messier 69","author":"jperez1690","date":"October 3, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"M069A","rel":"","context":"In "Deep Sky"","block_context":{"text":"Deep Sky","link":"https:\/\/perezmedia.net\/beltofvenus\/category\/deep-sky\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":37,"url":"https:\/\/perezmedia.net\/beltofvenus\/2004\/10\/04\/m71\/","url_meta":{"origin":36,"position":3},"title":"Messier 71","author":"jperez1690","date":"October 4, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"M071","rel":"","context":"In "Deep Sky"","block_context":{"text":"Deep Sky","link":"https:\/\/perezmedia.net\/beltofvenus\/category\/deep-sky\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":44,"url":"https:\/\/perezmedia.net\/beltofvenus\/2004\/10\/14\/m28\/","url_meta":{"origin":36,"position":4},"title":"Messier 28","author":"jperez1690","date":"October 14, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"M028","rel":"","context":"In "Deep Sky"","block_context":{"text":"Deep Sky","link":"https:\/\/perezmedia.net\/beltofvenus\/category\/deep-sky\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":40,"url":"https:\/\/perezmedia.net\/beltofvenus\/2004\/10\/08\/m72\/","url_meta":{"origin":36,"position":5},"title":"Messier 72","author":"jperez1690","date":"October 8, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"M072","rel":"","context":"In "Deep Sky"","block_context":{"text":"Deep Sky","link":"https:\/\/perezmedia.net\/beltofvenus\/category\/deep-sky\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/perezmedia.net\/beltofvenus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/perezmedia.net\/beltofvenus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/perezmedia.net\/beltofvenus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/perezmedia.net\/beltofvenus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/perezmedia.net\/beltofvenus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/perezmedia.net\/beltofvenus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":673,"href":"https:\/\/perezmedia.net\/beltofvenus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36\/revisions\/673"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/perezmedia.net\/beltofvenus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/perezmedia.net\/beltofvenus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/perezmedia.net\/beltofvenus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}