Hubble Space Telescope Image of the Central Region of M30


HST Image of the Stars in the Center of the Dense Globular Cluster M30.

This figure shows a schematic representation of the stars in the center of the dense globular cluster M30. The stellar density is approximately one million solar masses per cubic parsec in the central regions. Colors indicate stellar type: a red dot indicates a red giant branch or a subgiant star, green dots are horizontal branch stars, blue represents blue straggler stars and, white dots represent main sequence stars. The size of each dot is proportional to the stars brightness, with the biggest dots corresponding to V magnitude 14 stars and the faintest dots corresponding to V magnitude 21.5 stars. The cluster M30 contains a higher proportion of blue straggler stars in it's center than any other known globular cluster. The green cross marks the dynamical center of the cluster. This image was may by processing a set of multi-color exposures from the WFPC-2 camera of the HST.

Details may be found in the paper: WFPC-2 Observations of the Globular Cluster M30, by Yanny, B., Guhathakurta, P., Schneider, D. P., & Bahcall, J. N. 1994, ApJL, 435, L59.


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