The Night of the Globulars - Gaia, TOPCAT and Satellite Photobombing!

In this EAA session, we are exploring several globular clusters in the not so dark June sky.
Along the way, I had fun with some free software applications and the GAIA /StarHorse2 star catalogue. Using Stellarium's Satellite Plugin to avoid satellites trailing across the image was fun, but a little impractical 😊
Please use the chapter markers to skip merrily through the video to each section.
00:00:00 Opening
00:00:36 Introduction
00:01:08 Stellarium Satellite Plugin
00:01:31 Globular Cluster Intro
00:01:56 My EAA Setup
00:02:28 M13 Live Stacking
00:03:29 SkyChart and Gaia
00:05:52 TOPCAT M13 Gaia
00:10:54 Messier 13
00:11:32 Messier 92
00:11:58 Messier 5
00:12:23 Messier 3
00:12:53 Messier 53
My EAA Setup
Hardware: Celestron CPC-800 @ F6.3, ZWO ASI 533mm camera and SkyWatcher Moon and Skyglow Filter 2"
Software: SharpCap 4.1, AstroPlanner 2.4, Stellarium 24.1+ (beta)
EAA Control Panel - Custom software to orchestrate my EAA sessions and bind the applications together. It is also a SAMP client and can communicate with the applications below.
Additional Software
These free tools can all access Gaia data (and much more). They also can exchange information between themselves via SAMP and the VO Tables format.
Cartes du Ciel 4.3 (beta) www.ap-i.net/skychart//en/start
A superb, well known and free, planetarium application for Windows, Mac and Linux.
Allows the download of the Gaia DR3 catalogue (+1.8 billion stars) in manageable chunks.
SAMP Client.
TOPCAT www.star.bristol.ac.uk/mbt/to...
Tool for OPerations on Catalogues And Tables
Amazing tool for the exploration of tabular data. Written in Java, the application will require the Java runtime for your system.
The tool is free and supports access to a vast array of catalogues.
SAMP Client & Server.
CDS Aladin Sky Atlas aladin.cds.unistra.fr/
A sky atlas that can download and display a huge array of astronomical images (DSS, PanSTARRS etc) and surveys (Gaia, HyperLEDA etc).
Written in Java.
SAMP Client & Server.
GAIA www.cosmos.esa.int/web/gaia
OMEGA CENTAURI, A GLOBULAR CLUSTER BURSTING WITH STARS
www.cosmos.esa.int/web/gaia/f...
StarHorse2
[1]Anders, F., “Photo-astrometric distances, extinctions, and astrophysical parameters for Gaia EDR3 stars brighter than G = 18.5”, Astronomy and Astrophysics, vol. 658, 2022. doi:10.1051/0004-6361/202142369.
www.aanda.org/articles/aa/pdf...
Commercial Software: Software Bisque's TheSky Professional, also supports the Gaia catalogue.

[@larrychristianson2244]

Very interesting - fun with data. Thanks for showing me something new.

[@Xio2011]

Hi Larry, thanks for watching. It was fun playing around with TOPCAT and the Gaia data, on various objects.
On the same night I was observing the globular clusters. I had a look at M11, one of my favourite clusters, set in a rich star field of the Milky Way. I believe, I managed to pull out its member stars by using TOPCAT to plot the proper motion (RA and Dec). A subset of stars clustered together on the graph. I want to go back and combine that data with StarHorse2 distance data, to get a 3D perspective on the cluster. Absolutely a waste of time, but it is just fun to explore the local universe with these amazing tools and datasets.
Many thanks.
Pete

[@larrychristianson2244]

@@Xio2011 M11 is a beauty, and one of my favorites too. Overall I think the globulars and open clusters are too easily dismissed by modern amateurs. I'm just getting back into the hobby after 40 years (sigh) away from it. Those clusters were my favorites as I could see them; I wasn't taking photos. Having the data available and doing some personal science with it is pretty cool.

[@jamesianhampton108]

Excellent, more ideas… looks like I’m gonna need a new hard drive… 😜

[@Xio2011]

Hi James, sorry about that. 😊 Those big catalogues do take up a lot of space. Gaia DR3 for TheSky and SkyChart, UCAC4 for AstroPlanner and the DSS images for Stellarium takes up 220GB of disk space! Aladin, helps, by downloading on demand.

[@larryfine4719]

NINA has maps of these objects. Just punch it in and off it goes :-)

[@Xio2011]

Hi Larry, I'm on a boat right now. Which I suppose is no surprise, as I live on an Island! 😄
I'm intrigued. Does NINA have 3D maps of globular clusters, or does it support Gaia? I'm not that familiar with NINA, as I have always used SharpCap for EAA.
Have fun.
Pete

[@larryfine4719]

I use the "Offline Sky Map" and imported some background maps which gives the display something half resembling what Stellarium does. You can select "Slew and center" to point at your object (with plate solving to get it just right) and the "Determine rotation from camera" to show you how it will be framed. It makes life so easy :-)

[@Xio2011]

@larryfine4719 Hi Larry, that sounds good. Thank you for the information. There are some amazing software tools available for our hobby. Have fun. Pete