M19 is a 6.8 magnitude small globular star cluster in Ophiuchus. It was discovered by Charles Messier in May 1764, four days after the discovery of M14. In the crude telescopes available during Messier's day, this object appeared as a faint nebulous haze that could be confused with a comet. Sir William Herschel was the first person to resolve the object into a cluster of stars in 1784. M19 is one of the most oblate globular star clusters, with perhaps twice as many stars along the major axis as there are along the minor axis. Two bright stars on the right side of the cluster as seen in this image are actually field stars in the foreground that fortuitously lie along the same line of sight, but are not members of the star cluster. M19 is located between 20,000 and 30,000 light-years way from us.
This is a composite RGB CCD image taken with a Takahashi FCT-150 telescope. The CCD camera was an SBIG ST-8XE using a CFW-8 color filter wheel. This image was taken from my backyard in Scottsdale, Arizona.
M19 (NGC 6273).
Constellation: Ophiuchus
RA: 17h 03m 02s Dec: -26d 16' 43"
April 6, 2006
Image by Sid Leach
Scottsdale, Arizona
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