While NASA's Cassini spacecraft was pointed to study Saturn's F ring, it happened to catch a globular star cluster passing through the camera's field of view.
This movie is a concatenation of 13 images each taken about three minutes apart that show NGC 5139, or Omega Centauri. Some of the cluster's stars can even be seen through the ring's narrow Keeler Gap near the end of the movie. The cluster was in Ptolemy's star catalogue but was officially discovered by Edmond Halley in 1677 and was recognized as a globular cluster by John Herschel.
To learn more, go to
http://www.ciclops.org/view/5608/Catching_a_Cluster_of_Stars
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