One of the finest Springtime globular clusters is M3 in the Hunting Dogs. M3 was discovered by Charles Messier in 1764. Messier saw a circular nebula without stars, but with a bright core. This 6th-magnitude cluster is also considered to be a challenging naked eye object. The view in a pair of binoculars looks very similar to what Messier saw : a little nebula with a brighter center. The core looks stellar to me in the 8x56. I can see the core with direct vision. The easiest way to find M3 is to draw a line from Arcturus to Cor Caroli. You’ll find M3 at about halfway the distance between these two bright stars. While you admire the view of this distant (34,000 l-y) city of light, imagine that this cluster of half a million stars orbits the galactic centre of our galaxy once every 300 million years.

Observing data:
Date : April 11, 2008
Time : around 22.30UT
Binoculars : Bresser 8x56
FOV: 5.9°
Filter : none
Mount : Trico Machine Sky Window
Seeing : 3/5
Transp. : 2.5/5
Nelm : 5.0
Sketch Orientation : N up, W right.
Digital sketch made with PhotoPaint, based on a raw pencil sketch.