Celestial hemisphere:  Southern  ·  Constellation: Sagittarius (Sgr)  ·  Contains:  M 54  ·  NGC 6715
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M54, Gary Imm
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M54

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M54, Gary Imm
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M54

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Description

This globular star cluster, also known as NGC 6715, is located 90,000 light years away in the constellation of Sagittarius at a declination of -30 degrees.  This magnitude 7.7 cluster spans 8 arc-minutes in our apparent view, which corresponds to a diameter of 200 light years.

This object is the furthest Messier star cluster from earth and the 2nd most massive globular cluster in the sky (after Omega Centauri). In fact, this object was the first globular cluster discovered to belong to a different galaxy.  In 1994, scientists discovered that M54 belongs to the Sagittarius Dwarf Spheriodal Galaxy, one of the satellite galaxies of the Milky Way that will eventually be captured by our galaxy.  Because of its distance from earth, the core is not resolvable into individual stars and instead appears as a bright white mass.

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