Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Canes Venatici (CVn)  ·  Contains:  HD119025  ·  HD119081  ·  HD119391  ·  HD119748  ·  M 3  ·  NGC 5263  ·  NGC 5272
Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
Globular cluster M3, Thomas LELU
Powered byPixInsight

Globular cluster M3

Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
Globular cluster M3, Thomas LELU
Powered byPixInsight

Globular cluster M3

Equipment

Loading...

Acquisition details

Loading...

Description

M3 is one of the largest globular clusters, with an estimated population of half a million stars.
But what makes M3 really special is the unusually high number of variable stars it contains. We continue to discover and to date there are no less than 274.

The cluster's distance is estimated at about 33,300 light-years (it is far beyond the center of our Galaxy) and its age is 11.39 billion years.

Its luminosity is estimated at 300,000 times that of our Sun. Finally, this swarm of stars is approaching us at a rate of 147.6 km/sec!

When the light emitted from this globular cluster "left" to strike my photographic sensor, we are in the age of carved stone: the Paleolithic!
While hunter-gatherers decorated certain caves in the south of France, the photons began their journey from this cluster to arrive 33,300 years later in my photographic sensor.

Comments

Revisions

  • Globular cluster M3, Thomas LELU
    Original
  • Final
    Globular cluster M3, Thomas LELU
    C

Sky plot

Sky plot

Histogram

Globular cluster M3, Thomas LELU

In these collections

Star clusters