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M3
Magnitude: 6.2
Distance: Aprox: 33,900 light-years
Constellation: Canes Venatici, the Hunting Dogs
Star Count: Aprox 500,000

Messier 3 is one of the brightest, largest globular clusters in the sky. 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.

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.


Taken 1/25/18 in Toledo Ohio by Russell Kille on a CPC 1100 with Hyperstar @ F2 and ZWO ASI294MC Pro camera