NGC 7006

NGC 7006 in Delphinus is one of my favorite globular clusters. It's not as spectacular as M5, M3, M13, M22, at least from a visual sense, but understanding it's semi-remoteness compared to the others makes it special. I have a fond memory of my first glimpse of this cluster back in 1988 with my Celestron C8 SCT. With my '83 (second edition) copy of Peterson's Field Guide to the Stars (which I still have) and using the setting circles of the Super Polaris, I found the small smudge of light of the globular even through the light pollution dome of Philadelphia to the Southwest. Distance measurements to NGC 7006 since the field guide's printing have been refined with new estimates of 135,000 ly compared to 185,000 ly referenced in the book.

NGC 7006 in Delphinus

Type: Globular Cluster

Magnitude: 10.6

Apparent Size: 2.8'

Distance: 135 kly

Physical size: ~120 ly

Half-mass Rad. ~43 ly

Date acquired: Sept. 22, 2025

Sky Brightness ~17.95 mag/arcsec^2

Ambient Temp: 69F / 20.5C

Camera: Starlight Xpress SX-694 (2x2 binning) 

Guider: Starlight Xpress Lodestar off-axis.

Scope: Astrotech AT10RC @F/8 (2000 mm)

Mount: Losmandy Titan w/Gemini-2

Filters: Astronomik L, R, G & B type 2c.

Exposures: L= 27 x 120 sec

Acquired, calibrated, stacked (avg) in Astroart 9

Processing Notes:

Calibrated with Flats, Bias & Defect Map

Linear Gradient removal

Multiscale Denoise to remove some background LP noise

Log stretch

The annotated image labels some galaxies in the 16-18 mag. range.