M68 Globular Cluster

M68, also known as NGC 4590, is a globular cluster in Hydra. Most globulars are miniature galaxies themselves, orbiting around the center of the Milky Way. This one is about 33,000 light years away, and is another binocular object from a dark spot. I was a bit hurried when I shot this; it's only about 10 frames, and the focus is pretty poor. I had just focused with a Bahtinov mask, so I suspect the real reason is plain old bad seeing.

"Seeing" refers to the stillness of the air, especially up high. Good seeing means less star twinkle and smaller star images in photos; bad seeing makes stars twinkle beautifully, but makes them big ugly blobs on photos. Large blurry items like nebula are not that badly affected by bad seeing, but star clusters are especially, and it's not the sort of problem that software can really correct. I can "shrink" each star with Photoshop, but that is really just throwing away data; many faint stars are lost in the process. Plus, I don't look to Photoshop to fake pictures, just to enhance the information already present in the picture.