It is not possible to see with the naked eye and appears as a faint smudge in binoculars.
Discovered in 1764 by Charles Messier it contains 500,000 stars like our Sun.
The Earth is 4.5 billion years old but this cluster is much older at 11.4 billion years old.
Its over 200 light years in diameter and 34,000 light years away.
To put this distance into perspective:
Light takes just 4.1 light hours to travel from the Sun to the farthest planet Neptune.
Oh and by the way M3 is hurtling towards us at 331,200 mph.
This image took 2hrs of exposure at ISO1000.
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