Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Canes Venatici (CVn)  ·  Contains:  M 3  ·  NGC 5263  ·  NGC 5272
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M3, Gary Imm
M3, Gary Imm

M3

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M3, Gary Imm
M3, Gary Imm

M3

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Description

This Messier globular cluster is located 32,000 light years away in the constellation of Canes Venatici (The Hunting Dogs) at a declination of +28 degrees.  It is a magnitude 6.3 cluster which spans 16 arc-minutes in our apparent view.  This corresponds to an actual width of 150 light years.

M3 was the first object in the Messier catalog to be discovered by Charles Messier himself.   It contains 274 known variable stars, by far the most found in any globular cluster.  The cluster has a nice mix of colorful blue and orange stars.

The small galaxy to the right is NGC 5263.   This galaxy is located 230 million light years away and is the size of our Milky Way (120,000 light years in diameter).

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M3, Gary Imm

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