Post by Gregg1956 on May 22, 2015 7:41:30 GMT
Messier 13
A few weeks ago I re-watched several episodes of the original Cosmos series hosted by Carl Sagan. In one of them he mentions the Great Globular Cluster in Hercules (M13) and that we humans sent a message to anyone who may live in this cluster, via the Arecibo Radio Telescope.
Since this glob is about 25,000 light years away, it will take the short burst of data about 25,000 years to reach ET, and another 25,000 to get a reply.
Texting with aliens is a tad slow. I imagine the reply will be "OMG we got yer msg LOL"
Tonight I went out for a quick unplanned observation session with my 90mm refractor. I mainly wanted to see Saturn, which I did and it was beautiful as always. Then I looked around and saw Hercules. Using my 15mm eyepiece (at 44x magnification) I quickly found M13. I then switched to an 8mm EP (82.5x) and got an excellent view of this beautiful glob.
Thank you, Carl Sagan, for opening my eyes to so much more of the universe.
M13.kmz (702 B)
Arecibo Radio Telescope.kmz (688 B)
Since this glob is about 25,000 light years away, it will take the short burst of data about 25,000 years to reach ET, and another 25,000 to get a reply.
Texting with aliens is a tad slow. I imagine the reply will be "OMG we got yer msg LOL"
Tonight I went out for a quick unplanned observation session with my 90mm refractor. I mainly wanted to see Saturn, which I did and it was beautiful as always. Then I looked around and saw Hercules. Using my 15mm eyepiece (at 44x magnification) I quickly found M13. I then switched to an 8mm EP (82.5x) and got an excellent view of this beautiful glob.
Thank you, Carl Sagan, for opening my eyes to so much more of the universe.
M13.kmz (702 B)
Arecibo Radio Telescope.kmz (688 B)