Messier 70 (NGC 6281) - wonderfuluniverse.de

Messier 70 (NGC 6681) – VdS Remote Hakos

As a member of the VdS remote observatory group, I have the opportunity to use the VdS remote observatory in Hakos, Namibia. Members may process both their own data as well as the data acquired by other users. For this result, I worked with a dataset recorded by Kai-Oliver Detken.

The final image shows the globular star cluster Messier 70 (M70), located in the constellation Sagittarius, deep within the crowded regions of the Galactic bulge. M70 lies at a distance of approximately 29,000 light-years and is classified as a relatively compact globular cluster with a Shapley–Sawyer concentration class V, indicating a well-defined, dense core surrounded by a gradually diminishing halo of stars.

Scientifically, M70 is notable for its moderately low metallicity of about [Fe/H] ≈ –1.6, placing it within the population of old, metal-poor clusters that formed during the early assembly of the Milky Way. Its color–magnitude diagram reveals a rich population of horizontal-branch stars, red giants, and a number of RR Lyrae variables, all of which help constrain its age to roughly 12–13 billion years. M70’s compact core and relatively high central density make it an interesting target for studying internal stellar dynamics, mass segregation, and the long-term evolution of tightly bound stellar systems.

Its proximity to the Galactic center also results in heavy foreground star fields and significant extinction, which deep imaging can penetrate to reveal the cluster’s rich inner structure.

All data calibration, registration, and final image processing were performed using PixInsight.