M3 · Seestar S30 · 2026-05-23

Messier 3 (NGC 5272) is a large, bright globular cluster in the constellation Canes Venatici, located approximately 33,900 light-years from Earth. It is among the largest and most populous globular clusters known, containing roughly half a million stars bound together by gravity, and is especially notable for hosting one of the largest known populations of variable stars, particularly RR Lyrae-type pulsators. Like most globulars, M3 is an ancient object, with stars dating back many billions of years to the early history of the Milky Way's halo. For imagers, it is a striking target for resolving a dense, sparkling core of individual stars against a smooth, symmetric glow, and benefits from good seeing and moderate focal length to render the tightly packed core without excessive star bloat.

[Source: Wikipedia, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messier_3]

Sky Location

The chart above shows where this image sits on the night sky. The yellow outline is its field of view, with the picture itself drawn at its true orientation; north is up and east is left. Click the chart to zoom in, and use "open full resolution" for the full-size chart.

Image Details

PixInsight Processing

1. Fast Integration
2. Drizzle Integration
3. Dynamic Crop
4. BlurXTerminator (AI deconvolution) (x2)
5. Background Neutralization
6. Dynamic Background Extraction
7. Spectrophotometric Color Calibration
8. NoiseXTerminator (AI denoise)
9. Multiscale Adaptive Stretch
10. Multiscale Median Transform

Messier 3 (NGC 5272) is a large, bright globular cluster in the constellation Canes Venatici, located approximately 33,900 light-years from Earth. It is among the largest and most populous globular clusters known, containing roughly half a million stars bound together by gravity, and is especially notable for hosting one of the largest known populations of variable stars, particularly RR Lyrae-type pulsators. Like most globulars, M3 is an ancient object, with stars dating back many billions of years to the early history of the Milky Way's halo. For imagers, it is a striking target for resolving a dense, sparkling core of individual stars against a smooth, symmetric glow, and benefits from good seeing and moderate focal length to render the tightly packed core without excessive star bloat.

[Source: Wikipedia, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messier_3]

Annotated Image

The annotated version is shown above - click it to zoom. Open the annotated image at full resolution.

Sky Location

The chart above shows where this image sits on the night sky. The yellow outline is its field of view, with the picture itself drawn at its true orientation; north is up and east is left. Click the chart to zoom in, and use "open full resolution" for the full-size chart.

Image Details

PixInsight Processing

1. Fast Integration
2. Drizzle Integration
3. Dynamic Crop
4. BlurXTerminator (AI deconvolution) (x2)
5. Background Neutralization
6. Dynamic Background Extraction
7. Spectrophotometric Color Calibration
8. NoiseXTerminator (AI denoise)
9. Multiscale Adaptive Stretch
10. Multiscale Median Transform