Omega Centauri: Photos from India

The Omega Centauri Globular Cluster

It has been a while since I have last posted, I have been busy for the last few months, but I finally got the chance. Due to some circumstances, we had to come to south India for a while, and I brought all my camera gear with me. Since South India is much further south than North Carolina, I got the opportunity to take photos of new objects. This is because the stars that are above the horizon depend on where you are. After some deliberation, I set my sights on Omega Centauri

Omega Centauri is a globular cluster located in the constellation of Centaurus. A globular cluster is a large clump of thousands or even millions of stars gravitationally bound to each other. Omega Centauri is one of the largest globular clusters in our galaxy with more than 10 million stars. It is also the largest globular cluster in the night sky, which is one of the big reasons I chose it. It also never rises more than a few degrees above the horizon in NC, but in India, it rises more than 20 degrees above the horizon making it a lot easier to photograph. Once I had decided upon it, all I had to wait for was clear skies.

They took a while to come, for the first ten days the skies were cloudy. What often seemed to be sunny clear skies, would quickly turn into terrible skies within the matter of an hour, so I would never know for sure if the skies were going to be clear or not till just an hour or two beforehand. In fact on May 26th, when there was also a lunar eclipse, I was hoping to take pictures and I completely set up my gear. In the end, clouds formed and I didn’t see the moon until it was too late, though I did manage to get some colorful shots of the moon. Eventually though, I got a chance on May 28th. While there were a few clouds in the evening, they all cleared up before 7 PM, and I took my camera gear to the 3rd-floor terrace of my grandparent's house.

The Colorful Moon!

Right off the bat, I started having some problems. While there were no clouds, the air was muggy and humid which prevented me from seeing the guide stars I was looking for, to help me find Omega Centauri. While on light pollution maps it said that I was at Bortle 4 skies, the heavy streetlights around meant that there was still a lot of light pollution. Eventually, the skies got clearer and darker, and by 7:45 PM I was taking photos. I had a time limitation that day, so I had to stop before 8:30 PM, but I managed to capture more than 200 light frames, which is not bad for a bright object like Omega Centauri. I went inside, had dinner, and started stacking my images in DSS. It took about 30 minutes, but when that was done, I gave it my first try at editing.

It came out much better than I had hoped for, and I could actually resolve stars in the image.

My first edit of Omega Centauri

Zoomed in view

I later gave it another try at editing and made the background sky darker.

Overall, I am really happy with how the image came out: the object is very bright and clear, and I could resolve stars. One thing I think I could improve on is that I could use shorter exposure times because there is a noticeable star trailing in the image when you zoom in. When it comes to untracked astrophotography, it can seem like there aren’t many things that you can photograph, but the truth is, there are a lot of things you photograph with just your camera and a tripod. Tell me what you think about my photos, I'd love to hear feedback. Clear Skies!