Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Coma Berenices (Com)  ·  Contains:  M 53  ·  NGC 5024
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M53, Doug Summers
M53
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M53

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M53, Doug Summers
M53
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M53

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Description

I always considered M53 to be one of the "lesser" Messier objects due to it's size.   Actually, Messier 53 is a larger globular.  It's distance from the galaxy center is the reason it appears small.   It is 60K light-years away from the galactic center, and about the same distance away from our solar system.   It contains 500K stars in a 6 arcmin extent.   Most of M53's stars are original population stars, so metallicity is low.    Given the low metallicity, there are quite a few blue stragglers in the cluster, the reason for which is unknown.

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M53, Doug Summers