globular star cluster M13

E54486

Globular star cluster M13, also known as the Great Hercules Cluster, is a dense, bright spherical collection of hundreds of thousands of ancient stars located in the constellation Hercules and is one of the most prominent globular clusters visible from Earth.

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Observed surface forms (2)

Surface form Occurrences
M13 0
Messier 13 1

Statements (50)

Predicate Object
instanceOf Messier object
NGC object
deep-sky object
globular star cluster
age about 11.5 billion years
alsoKnownAs Great Hercules Cluster
M 13
globular star cluster M13
surface form: Messier 13

NGC 6205
angularSize about 20 arcminutes
apparentMagnitudeV 5.8
bestSeenFromLatitude mid-northern latitudes
bestSeenIn spring
summer
cataloguedBy Charles Messier
catalogueInclusionYear 1764
contains RR Lyrae variable stars
blue straggler stars
horizontal branch stars
millisecond pulsars
multiple stellar populations
red giant stars
coreRadius about 1.7 parsecs
declination +36° 28′
diameter about 145 light-years
discoveredBy Edmund Halley
surface form: Edmond Halley
discoveryYear 1714
distanceFromEarth about 22,000 light-years
about 6.8 kiloparsecs
galacticLatitude about +40°
galacticLongitude about 59°
halfLightRadius about 3.5 parsecs
isNakedEyeObject yes, under dark skies
isPopularFor amateur astronomy observations
astrophotography
isVisibleFrom Northern Hemisphere
locatedIn Milky Way stellar halo
surface form: Galactic halo

Milky Way
locatedInConstellation Hercules
mass about 600,000 solar masses
MessierNumber 13
metallicity [Fe/H] ≈ −1.5
NGCNumber 6205
notableEvent Arecibo message beamed toward M13 in 1974
numberOfStars on the order of 300,000
several hundred thousand
observedBy Arecibo Observatory
Hubble Space Telescope
rightAscension 16h 41m
ShapleySawyerConcentrationClass V

Referenced by (2)

Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.

globular star cluster M13 alsoKnownAs globular star cluster M13
subject surface form: M13
this entity surface form: Messier 13
Arecibo message target globular star cluster M13