Optical CCD image of the globular cluster M56. The photo was taken by a CCD (charge-coupled device) camera mounted on the Royal Greenwich Observatory's Isaac Newton Telescope at the La Palma Observatory. This cluster of a million very old stars lies 30 million light years away, at the edge of our galaxy. In this false colour view, the individual stars around the edge appear as dots; nearer the centre, where the light from several stars is superimposed, the colours represent the total amount of light. Filter V, prime focus.