May 2005.
The object in the upper left area of the picture is the globular cluster M3, image taken at Howell’s Strubucker observatory (my front yard). M3 is a spherical cluster of more then 100,000 stars, orbiting our galaxy at a distance of more then 33,900 light years. The two foreground stars appear brighter because they are much closer, but M3 is actually estimated to be about 300,000 times brighter then the sun.
This is one of my first successful long exposures (60 seconds). The object, which I have previously imaged in short exposure mode, is invisible to the naked eye (at least to me) and only barely visible through the small telescope I used to take this image (a Vixen 80mm ST refracter) in which it looks like a very dim fuzzy star. Picture taken with an Atik 2HS Astro-Webcam.
(Information about M3 obtained from http://www.seds.org/messier/m/m003.html.)