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Globular Star Clusters
The first globular cluster discovered was
M22
in Sagittarius which was probably discovered by Abraham Ihle
in 1665, although there are hints that Hevelius may have seen
it previously. This discovery was followed by that of southern
Omega Centauri (NGC 5139) by Edmond Halley on his 1677
journey to St. Helena, which had been known but classified as star
since ancient times, that of
M5
in Serpens Caput by Gottfried Kirch in 1702,
M13
in Hercules again by Halley in 1714.
De Chéseaux's list of 1746 contains, in addition, globular
clusters
M71 and
M4, while
J.-D. Maraldi discovered
M15 and
M2
in September of this year.
In summer 1782, before William Herschel startet his comprehensive
deep sky survey with large telescopes, there were thus 33 globular
clusters known.
- James Binney and Scott Tremaine, Galactic Dynamics.
Princeton University Press, 1987, ISBN 0-691-08445-9
- Dimitri Mihalas and James Binney. Galactic Astronomy. Structure and
Kinematics. Second edition 1981, W.H. Freeman, San Francisco.
ISBN 0-7167-1280-6.
- Lyman Spitzer, Jr., Dynamical Evolution of Globular Clusters.
1987, Princeton University Press, ISBN 0-691-08309-6 and
0-691-08460-2 (pbk.)
Hartmut Frommert
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