M5 is a globular cluster in the constellation Serpens. It is Shapley-Sawyer class V which gives it a readily resolvable core lending it the classic snowball of stars appearance. M5 lies 24,460 light-years from Earth and is located in a part of the sky quite devoid of Milky Way foreground stars. The lack of foreground stars gives this image the illusion of not being very deep. However, it is actually a very deep image, with nearly 12 hours of exposure time and as evidenced by the very distant galaxy, IC 4537 to the lower left of M5, lying perhaps 500 million light-years away. This gives this image an incredible depth of field.
Image data:
Telescope/Mount: Celestron Compustar C14 with Astro Physics focal reducer (f/8.3).
Camera: SBIG STL 1100M with Baader Planetarium L,R,G,B filters.
Adaptive Optics: SBIG AO-L at 7 Hz.
Location: Pommier Observatory, Portland, OR, USA.
Dates: 2016-06-03 through 2016-06-06.
Exposures: L:R:G:B= = 180:180:170:170= 11 hours, 40 minutes total exposure.
See additional astrophotographs at www.rodpommier.com