Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Canes Venatici (CVn)  ·  Contains:  M 3  ·  NGC 5272
Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
M3 Globular Cluster (NGC 5272), Douglas J Struble
M3 Globular Cluster (NGC 5272)
Powered byPixInsight

M3 Globular Cluster (NGC 5272)

Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
M3 Globular Cluster (NGC 5272), Douglas J Struble
M3 Globular Cluster (NGC 5272)
Powered byPixInsight

M3 Globular Cluster (NGC 5272)

Equipment

Loading...

Acquisition details

Loading...

Description

Messier 3 (M3) is a globular cluster located in the constellation Canes Venatici, the Hunting Dogs.

Messier 3 is one of the brightest, largest globular clusters in the sky. It has an apparent magnitude of 6.2 and is approximately 33,900 light years distant from Earth. It has the designation NGC 5272 in the New General Catalogue.

Messier 3 is one of the most popular targets among amateur astronomers next to Messier 13, the Hercules Globular Cluster, and one of the most studied of all known globular clusters.

It has an absolute magnitude of about -8.93 and a luminosity about 300,000 times that of the Sun. The cluster is approaching us at 147.6 km/s.

M3 contains an estimated half a million stars. The brightest stars in the cluster are of magnitude 12.7 and the average brightness of the 25 brightest stars is 14.23 mag.

The overall spectral type of M3 is F2. The cluster has a total mass of about 450,000 solar masses.

Comments

Sky plot

Sky plot

Histogram

M3 Globular Cluster (NGC 5272), Douglas J Struble

In these public groups

Messier Objects