Messier 3 in the constellation Canes Venatici

The Globular Star Cluster Messier3 - 127mm Meade Apo refractor and Canon 600d DSLR. A cropped stack of 30 second sub frames. Credit Kurt Thrust at the Jodrell Plank Observatory.

 " Sadly and over the past few days, the Observatory Team has been laid low by the Covid virus. However, on a positive note , Pip Stakkert has risen from his sick bed to upgrade some of the processing software used here at Jodrell Plank. He is a particularly plucky and persistent processor indeed!

Pip has installed the latest iteration of AstroSharp, which now installs with AstroClean. Initial tests on the above image of Messsier3 have shown a big improvement over the original image.

Also, good friend of the Observatory, Professor Chrissy H Roberts, has applied some AI magic to our processing 'schstick' which improved the colour and number of stars visible in the above image. 

We are already to go and catch some night time photons with both kit and software primed for action. We just need the Covid virus to burn itself out and the weather to be astro-imaging friendly.

Messier 3 is an absolutely splendid globular star cluster some 32600 lightyears from Earth and roughly the same distance above the disc of the galactic plane of the Milky Way. It is estimated to be over 11 billion years old and contains approximately 500,000 stars. It is relatively bright and can be seen as an unresolved cloud through binoculars. To resolve stars requires a telescope with an aperture in excess of 100mm. To provide scale, the brightly illuminated dense core in our image is approximately 11 light years in diameter. The average spectral type of the primarily ancient stars that make up this cluster is F2 so its stars would be expected to present, much like our Sun, as yellow in colour. From close inspection of the above image, you will note that there are a number of blue stars present within the cluster. You are no doubt aware that only giant and short lived stars shine blue. So how can there be blue stars in a 11billion year old globular cluster? It is thought that mass transfer between older cooler stars, that get too close for comfort in the star dense cores of globular clusters, can rejuvenate and reinvent themselves as blue giants. These are referred to as 'blue stragglers'.

Messier3 may be seen roughly halfway between the bright alpha stars Arcturus and Cor Coroli." - Joel Cairo CEO of the Jodrell Plank Observatory.

Credit for map Roberto Mura, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons