⁂ Hercules Cluster

  Hercules Cluster is a star cluster in Hercules.

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  Type            Star cluster
  Constellation   Hercules
  Magnitude       7.0
  Apparent size   20′
  You need        binoculars

  Known as
  Messier         M13
  Dreyer          NGC 6205

  Physical
  Distance        22,200 light years
  Stars           several hundred thousand
  Age             11.6 billion years

  More information about Hercules Cluster

  The Hercules Cluster is a globular cluster, one of about 150 orbiting
  the Milky Way. It is amongst the oldest things in the galaxy at roughly
  11.6 billion years. Through binoculars, it is a fuzzy dot. With a
  telescope, the edges break into individual stars. A radio message was
  aimed at it in 1974. It should arrive in 25,000 years.

  History
  Discovered   1714, Edmond Halley

  Messier was hunting comets. He compiled his list between 1758 and 1781
  as a register of things that look like comets but are not. That's why
  the objects on it have nothing in common beyond being fuzzy and staying
  put.

  Dreyer compiled the New General Catalogue in 1888, mostly from the
  sweeps William and John Herschel made of the sky, and numbered its 7,840
  objects in order of right ascension.

  where it is tonight:  skymap.sh/Hercules Cluster