Behold: Messier 13, aka, the Great Globular Cluster in Hercules. To wit:
In 1716, English astronomer Edmond Halley noted, “This is but a little Patch, but it shews itself to the naked Eye, when the Sky is serene and the Moon absent.” Of course, M13 is now less modestly recognised as the Great Globular Cluster in Hercules, one of the brightest globular star clusters in the northern sky. Sharp telescopic views like this one reveal the spectacular cluster’s hundreds of thousands of stars. At a distance of 25,000 light-years, the cluster stars crowd into a region 150 light-years in diameter. Approaching the cluster core upwards of 100 stars could be contained in a cube just 3 light-years on a side. For comparison, the closest star to the Sun is over 4 light-years away. The remarkable range of brightness recorded in this image follows stars into the dense cluster core. Distant background galaxies in the medium-wide field of view include NGC 6207 at the lower right.]
(Image: Martin Dufour)
I hate Oscar Wilde and am glad he was murdered by his own wallpaper in that long forgotten episode of the X-Files.As a bloated paedophile he lay in his own filth and invited us to look at the stars. And humanity duly obliged, lying like a churnadrying in a sea of excrement and vomit and marvelling at the distant, indifferent stars. Views sometimes obscured by bloated rats or the swollen bodies of unnecessary children. Our best minds examine the stars and the saddos become weathermen. Bright today but with the prospect of further showers.