Month: Mar 2025

Canon Dr Rachel Mann, Archdeacon of Bolton and of Salford

And in the Big News today from a Faith Perspective, The Oscars. Or alternatively, Zolensky in the blue corner vs Trump and Vance in red. As they beat him over they head, they demanded that he be thankful. This is not at all like the Invisible Magic Friend, who simply says “Nice soul you have there. Shame if something were to happen to it. Would you like to thank me and say how great I am?”

Christians invented thankfulness. They discovered it in the Old Tasty mint. Julian of Norwich was thankful too.

I think I preferred The Oscars.

https://mega.nz/file/lnUFSaAQ#LCcNZ5GDOhH5X1H5qlKPVBxZvOD_8Cjaq5a0dku4wec

M13 Globular Cluster

I’ve posted a picture of the M13 Globular Cluster in Hercules before. I won’t repeat the description that I gave then.

https://platitudes.home.blog/2024/04/12/m13/

Here’s the picture from April last year taken with my 6″ reflector and Panasonic Lumix camera.

And here’s one taken a couple of nights ago with the Seestar S50 Smart Telescope.

I’ve tried to get both pictures to show roughly the same angle and scale. They’re not exactly the same. Nevertheless, there are clearly a lot more stars visible in the newer picture.

Notice the bright orange star on the left (HIP 81848, 1400 ly, slightly cooler than our sun). The top picture has diffraction spikes because it was taken with a reflector telescope. This type of scope gathers light in a primary mirror that then reflects it to a secondary before being directed to the eyepiece. The secondary mirror needs supports to hold it in place and these are what cause the diffraction spikes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newtonian_telescope

On the bottom picture there are no diffraction spikes. The Seestar S50 is a refractor. Actually in this case, basically just a lens that focuses light directly on the camera sensor.

This was about a 20 minutes exposure. I might try an even longer one if I can get a clear enough night.

Still got a little way to go before I match Hubble though.

https://science.nasa.gov/mission/hubble/science/explore-the-night-sky/hubble-messier-catalog/messier-13