Messier 30
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AI overview
Messier 30 is a spherical collection of thousands of old stars located in the constellation Capricornus, held together by gravity. It is one of the notable deep-sky objects cataloged by astronomers and serves as an example of the ancient star clusters that orbit our galaxy.
AI-generated from the Wikipedia summary — may contain errors.
Key facts
- Class
- V
- Constellation
- Capricornus
- Right ascension
- 21 40 22.12
- Declination
- –23 ° 10 ′ 47.5 ″
- Distance
- 27.14 ± 0.65 kly (8.3 ± 0.20 kpc )
- Apparent dimensions v
- 12'.0
- Mass
- 1.6 × 10 M ☉
- Metallicity
- [ Fe/H ] = –2.27 dex
- Estimated age
- 12.93 Gyr
- Other designations
- M30, NGC 7099, GCl 122
via Wikipedia infobox
Article
Messier 30 (also known as M30, NGC 7099, or the Jellyfish Cluster) is a globular cluster of stars in the southeast of the southern constellation of Capricornus, at about the declination of the Sun when the latter is at December solstice. It was discovered by the French astronomer Charles Messier in 1764, who described it as a circular nebula without a star. In the New General Catalogue, compiled during the 1880s, it was described as a "remarkable globular, bright, large, slightly oval." It can be easily viewed with a pair of 10×50 binoculars, forming a patch of hazy light some 4 arcminutes wide that is slightly elongated along the east–west axis. With a larger instrument, individual stars can be resolved and the cluster will cover an angle of up to 12 arcminutes across graduating into a compressed core about one arcminute wide that has further star density within.
It is longest observable (opposed to the Sun) in the first half of August.