Week after week I've known that M13 goes in the miscellaneous category for the constellation Hercules on our COTW quizzes. Yet, I hadn't a clue what M13 really was or looked like. Here it is! The Great Globular Cluster of Hercules! Noted by English astronomer Edmund Halley, "This is but a little Patch, but it shews itself to the naked Eye, when the Sky is serene and the Moon absent." This cluster is composed of highly concentrated, oddly close together stars, hundreds of thousands of them, in a region just 150 light years in diameter. Stunning in its clarity, this image reveals the mystery behind Hercules' very own M13.
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