{"id":625229,"date":"2026-10-09T09:48:09","date_gmt":"2026-10-09T09:48:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/625229\/"},"modified":"2026-10-09T09:48:09","modified_gmt":"2026-10-09T09:48:09","slug":"the-sky-today-on-friday-october-9-dense-ancient-m30","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/625229\/","title":{"rendered":"The Sky Today on\u00a0Friday, October 9: Dense, ancient M30"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\tBack to Article List\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t\t\tThis dense globular cluster is the only Messier object in Capricornus, perfectly positioned for evening observing in the Sea Goat.\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1751\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/M30.png\" class=\"attachment-large size-large wp-post-image\" alt=\"Grayscale astrophotograph of a dense globular star cluster at center, appearing as a bright concentrated ball of tightly packed stars that thins into a loose scattering of stars toward the edges, set against a sparse field of background stars.\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\">Looking for a sky event this week? Check out our full\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.astronomy.com\/the-sky-this-week\/the-sky-this-week-from-october-2-to-9-2026\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Sky This Week<\/a>\u00a0column.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\">October 8: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.astronomy.com\/observing\/the-sky-today-thursday-october-8-2026\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Perfectly placed Pallas<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left wp-block-paragraph\">Swimming high above the southern horizon after dark, Capricornus the Sea Goat is home to just one Messier object: M30. This compact globular cluster shines at magnitude 7.2 and is perfectly positioned for viewing with binoculars or a small scope around 9:30 P.M. local daylight time this evening.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">You can find M30 in the southeastern corner of Capricornus. It sits just over 3\u00b0 east-southeast of 4th-magnitude Zeta (\u03b6) Capricorni. Spanning about 11\u2019 in diameter, the cluster has a dense core of stars that is unresolvable in smaller scopes, but the outskirts of the cluster will easily separate into individual stars even with a 4-inch instrument. If you do have a larger telescope, do pull it out, as larger instruments reveal additional detail \u2014 especially in the cluster\u2019s crowded central region.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Lying nearly 28,000 light-years from Earth, M30 is some 24,000 light-years from the center of our galaxy and orbits the Milky Way every 100 million years. Astronomers estimate this cluster is roughly 13 billion years old.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Sunrise: 7:04 A.M.<br \/>Sunset: 6:29 P.M.<br \/>Moonrise: 6:00 A.M.<br \/>Moonset: 5:49 P.M.<br \/>Moon Phase: New<br \/>*Times for sunrise, sunset, moonrise, and moonset are given in local time from 40\u00b0 N 90\u00b0 W. The Moon\u2019s illumination is given at 10 P.M. local time from the same location.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Alison Klesman\u00a0is senior editor of\u00a0Astronomy\u00a0magazine. She holds a Ph.D. in astronomy and has studied a variety of topics, from minor planets to supermassive black holes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Back to Article List This dense globular cluster is the only Messier object in Capricornus, perfectly positioned for&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":625230,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[111,139,69,12839,147,62517],"class_list":["post-625229","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-observing","tag-science","tag-sky-tonight"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/625229","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=625229"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/625229\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/625230"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=625229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=625229"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=625229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}