Messier 92

Behind the shot

Often overshadowed by its neighbor M13, M92 is showcased here as a dense, high-contrast stellar core. This wide-field study at 42mm perfectly frames the cluster within the Keystone's celestial neighborhood: M92 sits at the center, flanked by Iota Herculis (ι Her) to the left and Rho Herculis (ρ Her), 69 Herculis (e Her) and the orange giant Pi Herculis (π Her) to the right.

Observation

Date: 17 Apr 2026
Time: 22:36 - 22:53 CEST
Site: Porto San Giorgio, Marche, Italy
Bortle: Class 6

Bortle Class 6

Bright Suburban Sky
Azimuth: +56° 04' 23.7"
Altitude: +28° 24' 21.6"

Atmospherics

Visibility: Good
Weather: Clear sky, stable atmosphere
Moon: 0% New Moon - Below horizon

Acquisition

Camera: Panasonic Lumix G7
Lens: LUMIX G VARIO 14-42mm f/3.5-5.6
Mount: Static Tripod (Untracked)
Integration: 200 x 2.5s

Optics

Focal Length: 42mm
Aperture: f/5.6
ISO: ISO 1600

Post-Processing

Software: SiriL + darktable
Pre-Processing: Master-frame subtraction, strict FWHM filtering (< 2.50 px) for core resolution, RBF Background gradient extraction, Photometric Color Calibration (PCC).
Post-Processing: Profiled Non-local means denoising (strength 0.8), Local Laplacian contrast for stellar separation, selective sharpening with Diffuse or Sharpen (lens deblur), black level normalization.