Astronomy - USA (2020-06)

NGC 2419

These 20 top clusters offer

magical targets in any season.

BY MICHAEL E. BAKICH

Enjoy the

sky’s great

GLOBULARS

AS I SAT DOWN TO WRITE THIS STORY,

I quickly realized that my problem wasn’t with where

to begin, but where to end. If you’re new to the hobby,

you may think all globular clusters look the same. Not

so. As I hope you’ll realize by viewing them, each has

its own distinctive character.

So many globular clusters — spherical, tightly

packed collections of ancient stars — will reward you if

you spend extra time observing their details through a

telescope. My original idea was to describe only a

dozen globulars. That quickly evolved into 50. That’s

when reason (actually, the allotted page count) took

hold. I settled on my 20 favorite globular clusters easily

visible from the Northern Hemisphere. All but three

LEF

T:^ T

ON

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ALL

AS

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LOW

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ON

Y^ A

YIO

MA

MIT

IS