Star Clusters Megaclusters Online Slot Machine – Free Play & Review. Big Time Gaming might have a reputation for innovation, and they do have some of the more impressive game mechanics around, but when it comes to story telling and graphics, it’s definitely not a strength of theirs. The free spins round is played on an expanded 8x8 grid. As in the base game, should a cluster form, each of the winning symbols splits into 4 smaller ones. This means that the grid can technically reach 16x16 in size, filling with 256 Megaclusters should it max out. Star Clusters Megaclusters™ Free Spins In all slots, what everybody is waiting for is the free spins bonus round. As mentioned earlier, in Star Cluster Megaclusters free spins are triggered with 5 or more consecutive winning reactions. These trigger 2 free spins, and one extra free spin is awarded for each cascade after the fifth.

• General description and classification

Other than the headlining feature, Star Clusters Megacluster also features the generic free spins bonus. Free spins activate when you trigger 5 or more features/wins in the game. You earn 1 free spin for every reaction in the game after your 5th combo. Free rerolls cannot be saved. Galaxy odds: 20% for The Big Bang and 10% for any other galaxy and normal games. Removed Galaxy: Binary Star. New Manatee's Delight Galaxy: All players receive a free Spatula at the start of the game. Galaxy odds: 20% for normal games and 10% for any other galaxy. Removed Galaxy: Star Cluster.

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Star cluster, either of two general types of stellar assemblages held together by the mutual gravitational attraction of its members, which are physically related through common origin. The two types are open (formerly called galactic) clusters and globular clusters.

General description and classification

Open clusters contain from a dozen to many hundreds of stars, usually in an unsymmetrical arrangement. By contrast, globular clusters are old systems containing thousands to hundreds of thousands of stars closely packed in a symmetrical, roughly spherical form. In addition, groups called associations, made up of a few dozen to hundreds of stars of similar type and common origin whose density in space is less than that of the surrounding field, are also recognized.

Four open clusters have been known from earliest times: the Pleiades and Hyades in the constellationTaurus, Praesepe (the Beehive) in the constellation Cancer, and Coma Berenices. The Pleiades was so important to some early peoples that its rising at sunset determined the start of their year. The appearance of the Coma Berenices cluster to the naked eye led to the naming of its constellation for the hair of Berenice, wife of Ptolemy Euergetes of Egypt (3rd century bce); it is the only constellation named after a historical figure.

Though several globular clusters, such as Omega Centauri and Messier 13 in the constellation Hercules, are visible to the unaided eye as hazy patches of light, attention was paid to them only after the invention of the telescope. The first record of a globular cluster, in the constellation Sagittarius, dates to 1665 (it was later named Messier 22); the next, Omega Centauri, was recorded in 1677 by the English astronomer and mathematician Edmond Halley.

Star Cluster Names

Investigations of globular and open clusters greatly aided the understanding of the Milky Way Galaxy. In 1917, from a study of the distances and distributions of globular clusters, the American astronomer Harlow Shapley, then of the Mount Wilson Observatory in California, determined that its galactic centre lies in the Sagittarius region. In 1930, from measurements of angular sizes and distribution of open clusters, Robert J. Trumpler of Lick Observatory in California, showed that light is absorbed as it travels through many parts of space.

The discovery of stellar associations depended on knowledge of the characteristics and motions of individual stars scattered over a substantial area. In the 1920s it was noticed that young, hot blue stars (spectral types O and B) apparently congregated together. In 1949 Victor A. Ambartsumian, a Soviet astronomer, suggested that these stars are members of physical groupings of stars with a common origin and named them O associations (or OB associations, as they are often designated today). He also applied the term T associations to groups of dwarf, irregular T Tauri variable stars, which were first noted at Mount Wilson Observatory by Alfred Joy.

The study of clusters in external galaxies began in 1847, when Sir John Herschel at the Cape Observatory (in what is now South Africa) published lists of such objects in the nearest galaxies, the Magellanic Clouds. During the 20th century the identification of clusters was extended to more remote galaxies by the use of large reflectors and other more specialized instruments, including Schmidt telescopes.

Globular clusters

More than 150 globular clusters were known in the Milky Way Galaxy by the early years of the 21st century. Most are widely scattered in galactic latitude, but about a third of them are concentrated around the galactic centre, as satellite systems in the rich Sagittarius-Scorpius star fields. Individual cluster masses include up to one million suns, and their linear diameters can be several hundred light-years; their apparent diameters range from one degree for Omega Centauri down to knots of one minute of arc. In a cluster such as M3, 90 percent of the light is contained within a diameter of 100 light-years, but star counts and the study of RR Lyrae member stars (whose intrinsic brightness varies regularly within well-known limits) include a larger one of 325 light-years. The clusters differ markedly in the degree to which stars are concentrated at their centres. Most of them appear circular and are probably spherical, but a few (e.g., Omega Centauri) are noticeably elliptical. The most elliptical cluster is M19, its major axis being about double its minor axis.

Globular clusters are composed of Population II objects (i.e., old stars). The brightest stars are the red giants, bright red stars with an absolute magnitude of −2, about 600 times the Sun’s brightness or luminosity. In relatively few globular clusters have stars as intrinsically faint as the Sun been measured, and in no such clusters have the faintest stars yet been recorded. The luminosity function for M3 shows that 90 percent of the visual light comes from stars at least twice as bright as the Sun, but more than 90 percent of the cluster mass is made up of fainter stars. The density near the centres of globular clusters is roughly two stars per cubic light-year, compared with one star per 300 cubic light-years in the solar neighbourhood. Studies of globular clusters have shown a difference in spectral properties from stars in the solar neighbourhood—a difference that proved to be due to a deficiency of metals in the clusters, which have been classified on the basis of increasing metal abundance. Globular cluster stars are between 2 and 300 times poorer in metals than stars like the Sun, with the metal abundance being higher for clusters near the galactic centre than for those in the halo (the outermost reaches of the Galaxy extending far above and below its plane). The amounts of other elements, such as helium, may also differ from cluster to cluster. The hydrogen in cluster stars is thought to amount to 70–75 percent by mass, helium 25–30 percent, and the heavier elements 0.01–0.1 percent. Radio astronomical studies have set a low upper limit on the amount of neutral hydrogen in globular clusters. Dark lanes of nebulous matter are puzzling features in some of these clusters. Though it is difficult to explain the presence of distinct, separate masses of unformed matter in old systems, the nebulosity cannot be foreground material between the cluster and the observer.

About 2,000 variable stars are known in the 100 or more globular clusters that have been examined. Of these, perhaps 90 percent are members of the class called RR Lyrae variables. Other variables that occur in globular clusters are Population II Cepheids, RV Tauri, and U Geminorum stars, as well as Mira stars, eclipsing binaries, and novas.

The colour of a star, as previously noted, has been found generally to correspond to its surface temperature, and in a somewhat similar way the type of spectrum shown by a star depends on the degree of excitation of the light-radiating atoms in it and therefore also on the temperature. All stars in a given globular cluster are, within a very small percentage of the total distance, at equal distances from Earth so that the effect of distance on brightness is common to all. Colour-magnitude and spectrum-magnitude diagrams can thus be plotted for the stars of a cluster, and the position of the stars in the array, except for a factor that is the same for all stars, will be independent of distance.

In globular clusters all such arrays show a major grouping of stars along the lower main sequence, with a giant branch containing more-luminous stars curving from there upward to the red and with a horizontal branch starting about halfway up the giant branch and extending toward the blue.

This basic picture was explained as owing to differences in the courses of evolutionary change that stars with similar compositions but different masses would follow after long intervals of time. The absolute magnitude at which the brighter main-sequence stars leave the main sequence (the turnoff point, or “knee”) is a measure of the age of the cluster, assuming that most of the stars formed at the same time. Globular clusters in the Milky Way Galaxy prove to be nearly as old as the universe, averaging perhaps 14 billion years in age and ranging between approximately 12 billion and 16 billion years, although these figures continue to be revised. RR Lyrae variables, when present, lie in a special region of the colour-magnitude diagram called the RR Lyrae gap, near the blue end of the horizontal branch in the diagram.

Two features of globular cluster colour-magnitude diagrams remain enigmatic. The first is the so-called “blue straggler” problem. Blue stragglers are stars located near the lower main sequence, although their temperature and mass indicate that they already should have evolved off the main sequence, like the great majority of other such stars in the cluster. A possible explanation is that a blue straggler is the coalescence of two lower-mass stars in a “born-again” scenario that turned them into a single, more-massive, and seemingly younger star farther up the main sequence, although this does not fit all cases.

The other enigma is referred to as the “second parameter” problem. Apart from the obvious effect of age, the shape and extent of the various sequences in a globular cluster’s colour-magnitude diagram are governed by the abundance of metals in the chemical makeup of the cluster’s members. This is the “first parameter.” Nevertheless, there are cases in which two clusters, seemingly almost identical in age and metal abundance, show horizontal branches that are quite different: one may be short and stubby, and the other may extend far toward the blue. There is thus evidently another, as-yet-unidentified parameter involved. Stellar rotation has been mooted as a possible second parameter, but that now seems unlikely.

Integrated magnitudes (measurements of the total brightness of the cluster), cluster diameters, and the mean magnitude of the 25 brightest stars made possible the first distance determinations on the basis of the assumption that the apparent differences were due entirely to distance. However, the two best methods of determining a globular cluster’s distance are comparing the location of the main sequence on the colour-magnitude diagram with that of stars close to the globular cluster in the sky and using the apparent magnitudes of the globular cluster’s RR Lyrae variables. The correction factor for interstellar reddening, which is caused by the presence of intervening matter that absorbs and reddens stellar light, is substantial for many globular clusters but small for those in high galactic latitudes, away from the plane of the Milky Way. Distances range from about 7,200 light-years for M4 to an intergalactic distance of 400,000 light-years for the cluster called AM-1.

The radial velocities (the speeds at which objects approach or recede from an observer, taken as positive when the distance is increasing) measured by the Doppler effect have been determined from integrated spectra for more than 140 globular clusters. The largest negative velocity is 411 km/sec (kilometres per second) for NGC 6934, while the largest positive velocity is 494 km/sec for NGC 3201. These velocities suggest that the globular clusters are moving around the galactic centre in highly elliptical orbits. The globular cluster system as a whole has a rotational velocity of about 180 km/sec relative to the Sun, or 30 km/sec on an absolute basis. For some clusters, motions of the individual stars around the massive centre have actually been observed and measured. Though proper motions of the clusters are very small, those for individual stars provide a useful criterion for cluster membership.

The two globular clusters of highest absolute luminosity are in the Southern Hemisphere in the constellations Centaurus and Tucana. Omega Centauri, with an (integrated) absolute visual magnitude of −10.26, is the richest cluster in variables, with nearly 200 known in the early 21st century. From this large group, three types of RR Lyrae stars were first distinguished in 1902. Omega Centauri is relatively nearby, at a distance of 17,000 light-years, and it lacks a sharp nucleus. The cluster designated 47 Tucanae (NGC 104), with an absolute visual magnitude of −9.42 at a similar distance of 14,700 light-years, has a different appearance with strong central concentration. It is located near the Small Magellanic Cloud but is not connected with it. For an observer situated at the centre of this great cluster, the sky would have the brightness of twilight on Earth because of the light of the thousands of stars nearby. In the Northern Hemisphere, M13 in the constellation Hercules is the easiest to see and is the best known. At a distance of 23,000 light-years, it has been thoroughly investigated and is relatively poor in variables. M3 in Canes Venatici, 33,000 light-years away, is the cluster second richest in variables, with well more than 200 known. Investigation of these variables resulted in the placement of the RR Lyrae stars in a special region of the colour-magnitude diagram.

Star Clusters is the first Megaclusters™ slot from Big Time Gaming. It features a 4×4 grid with wins triggered by clusters of 5 or more identical symbols. Winning symbols break up into 4 smaller ones to form more wins, whilst Gold Wilds bring win multipliers into the game. In the free spins round the grid expands to 8×8 and the top payout rises to 23,000x.

Where Can I Play Star Cluster Megaclusters™ Slot?

ALL ABOUT STAR CLUSTER MEGACLUSTERS™ SLOT

We’ve written many times on The Slot Buzz about our admiration for Big Time Gaming and we don’t need to repeat the story of their influence on the slots industry here. The Megaways™ game format is now a mainstay of UK slot sites and casinos and the popularity of these games is testament to the genius and creativity of this Australian developer. Impressively BTG have continued to push things forward, innovate and bring new ideas with pretty much every new release since Bonanza back in 2016, with barely a dud in their catalogue. And now in Summer 2020, they’re bringing us another dose of wildness as they weave some Mega magic into the cluster pays grid slot format. As you would expect, it’s a grid slot, but not as you know it, and whilst it may be light on features, the first in what we hope will be a series of Megaclusters™ games is still an excellent looking slot with great win potential.

GAME SET-UP, SYMBOLS AND GRAPHICS

The first thing that hits you when you load up the Megaclusters™ game is the bright and cheerful colors, all pinks, reds, yellows and greens. The background is a simple pink and you’ll be serenaded by an electro-house mash up that keeps you bopping along throughout the game. Now, the grid itself starts out as a very simple 4×4, though of course it’s not going to stay that way now is it? No. But more on that in a minute.

Types Of Star Cluster

You’ll need to form clusters of five or more symbols linking horizontally and / or vertically to hit a win.

The symbols are all gemstones that come in a wide variety of colors, and landing 25 in one cluster can get you a top payout of 50x. There are also two important wild symbols to be aware of. These are the basic wild and the Gold Wild. Both sub for all other gems to create winning clusters whilst the Gold Wild comes with the advantage of adding multipliers to any win it features in. Each Gold Wild in a cluster will add 1x to the multiplier value of the win. Note that the multiplier re-sets when the win is over.

STAR CLUSTER MEGACLUSTERS™ SLOT RTP, VARIANCE AND PAYOUTS

Like almost all the Big Time Gaming and Megaways™ output, Star Cluster is a high variance slots, though not perhaps as high as a Bonanza or a Lil Devil. It’s not such a mean slot and perhaps might be entry level for those seeking to get a taste of the high-risk action who have previously been turned off by the long periods of dry spins that typically frustrate in highly volatile slots play. The RTP is set to a reasonable 96.54% and the top payout of over 20,000x is suggests this game will be capable of delivering some epic moments. Just bear in mind though that those big, big wins will be few and far between.

GAMEPLAY AND FEATURES

Megaclusters™

The Megaclusters™ mechanic is the big headline feature of this game, though of course there are free spins and multipliers to enhance the basic gameplay too. So, whenever you land a winning cluster you’ll see each of the symbols that forms part of that cluster breaking up into 4 smaller ones, with the potential to create more clusters themselves. And when a win occurs with the smaller symbols they are removed from the grid and new ones drop into replace them, in the classic format of a cluster pays grid game.

Free Spins

To trigger the free spins round you’ll need to land five consecutive wins or reactions from one spin. This gets you two free spins, plus 1 more for each reaction or consecutive win greater than 5. Additionally, the multiplier value accrued from Gold Wilds from the spin that triggered the bonus round is carried over into your free spins too.

Star Clusters Free Play Cribbage

The free spins round plays out just like the base game but with enhancements – the gird expands to 8×8, and when the Gold Wild multiplier reaches 10x so another 2 spins are added to your total, with no limit to how many times this can happen.

Clearly the action really hots up in this slot when more and more symbols are in play on the expanded grid, and when the Gold Multiplier is peaking. Game on!

OUR VERDICT

As you would expect Star Clusters is an innovative take on the classic grid slot with a clever twist on the standard gameplay. It’s a little light on features and we will wait to see how things develop as hopefully more games in the Megacluster™ series arrive in the coming months and years. But despite its simplicity it still looks to be a highly entertaining game and one that will have a broader appeal than some of the high variance monsters that BTG have unleashed in their time. So enjoy, and gamble responsibly.

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