47 Tucanae — The Golden Heart of Tucana

by Bob Meincke

Objects in field: 47 Tuc Cluster, NGC 104

Equipment: Askar V 60mm / 80mm Triplet Modular Refractor, ZWO ASI585MC Pro

Integration: 1h

47 Tucanae — The Golden Heart of Tucana 47 Tucanae, also cataloged as NGC 104, is one of the grandest globular clusters in the Milky Way—second in apparent brightness only to Omega Centauri. Roughly 16,700 light-years away, it spans about 120 light-years and gathers hundreds of thousands of ancient stars into an immense sphere held together by gravity. Its softly glowing center is not an…