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ILLUSTRATION BY ANDREW FAZEKAS
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A city of stars: With the moon out of the evening sky this week, it’s a great opportunity to hunt down a stunning, giant ball of stars known as Messier 3 rising in the Eastern sky late at night. While it lies within the borders of the tiny constellation Canes Venatici or the Hunting Dogs, this star cluster is very close to the boundary line shared with Bootes, the herdsman. This globular cluster sits at about the midpoint along a line drawn between the stars Arcturus and Cor Caroli. Binoculars will easily reveal M3 as a round-shaped mist, while a telescope will begin to resolve some of its half-million stars that call this beautiful cluster home. Astronomers estimate that M3 is one of the largest globulars ever discovered and it’s located about 33,920 light years from Earth. On Sunday and Monday at dawn, look for the crescent moon to join an eye-catching triangular formation of the planets Venus, Mars, and Saturn low in the southeastern sky. — Andrew Fazekas
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