Like sugar on black velvet: OBSERVING GLOBULAR CLUSTERS

Where I live in southern Canada, the cold, cloud and snow can make winter observing a challenge, but eventually the temperatures moderate, the clouds part and the snow melts. That’s when I get my 10- and 20-inch (250mm and 300mm) Dobsonian telescopes out to view my favourite eyepiece targets: globular clusters.

The best-in-class globular clusters are located in the Southern Hemisphere, where specimens such as Omega (ω) Centauri and 47 Tucanae outshine any globular visible from mid-northern latitudes. However, since most readers of this article, like me, are located north of latitude 40˚ North, I’ve focused on targets that are easily visible from my locale.

These spherical agglomerations of stars look good in any optics and, more than any other class of object, become more impressive with increasing aperture. ‘Globulars’, as they are sometimes called, are both beautiful and enigmatic; they can make you slow down to ponder the history and future of the cosmos. With so many targets to choose from, it’s likely I’ve missed some of your favourite globular clusters, but I hope you’ll enjoy this tour of some of my favourites!

I’ve always found that my eyepiece