Omega Centauri, NGC 5139, acrylic on panel, 11 x 14. $600.00 framed.

This globular cluster is the biggest in the Milky Way Galaxy, containing as much matter as 5 million suns. Located in the constellation Centaurus, it is visible to the naked eye as a fuzzy 4th magnitude "star", low on the southern horizon (36 degrees south of the star Spica in the constellation Virgo) on spring and summer evenings. A good telescope won't give you this kind of color, but you can probably still pick out some blues. Omega Centauri measures about 150 light-years across and, at the center, the stars are packed in at an average distance from one another of about 1/10th of a light-year.