NGC 3603 (Nebula and Cluster)
A dense cluster of massive young stars in Carina inside the glowing gas it lights, about 22,000 light-years away. It is the farthest nebula in the Milky Way on this site.
Nebula and star cluster in Carina.
Can you see it from Guyana?
From Georgetown (6.8° N) it climbs to 22° above the southern horizon at its highest; from Lethem (3.4° N), to 25° above the southern horizon. It is highest at midnight on the night of 8 Mar, in the middle of its season. The page works out tonight's rise, highest point and set for both towns in Guyana time (UTC-4), and where the Moon is.
What you'll see
- Your eyes: Not visible to the eye. It lies 7.9° south-west of Imai.
- 10x50 binoculars: Not visible in binoculars.
- A small telescope (80 to 100 mm): A small, bright knot of light at high power; NGC 3576 is 0.4° away. Low in the south.
- A camera: Tiny on camera: it needs 2,000 mm or more of focal length on a tracking mount. An H-alpha-sensitive (modified) camera brings out its red glow.
How big, how bright, how far
- Size on the sky: 3.3′, 11% of the Moon's width (the Moon is about 31′ wide).
- Distance: 22,000 light-years. The light reaching your eye left it about 22,000 years ago.
- True size: 21 light-years across its catalogued outline; light crosses it in 21 years.
Apparent size from OpenNGC (Mattia Verga), CC-BY-SA-4.0.
What it is made of
- Type
- Emission nebula with a massive young cluster
- Mass
- About 9,000 times the Sun's mass, in the stars of its cluster NGC 3603
- Age
- About 7.1 million years (range 2.5 million years to 12 million years), the age of NGC 3603
- Notable
- A starburst region, the closest of its kind known in our galaxy, and the farthest nebula in the Milky Way on this site at about 22,000 light-years.
What is in it, not measured:
- Ionised hydrogen: glows red where hot stars light it
- Helium and heavier gases: with traces of oxygen, nitrogen and sulphur
- Dust: in dark lanes
- Young hot stars: that light it
How we know: Distance from Gaia parallaxes of the stars of NGC 3603, the cluster inside it: Hunt & Reffert 2024, A&A 686, A42 (Gaia DR3 cluster catalogue, VizieR J/A+A/686/A42), retrieved 2026-10-21: NGC 3603 6,775 pc; statistical 21,784-22,421 ly (16th-84th percentile); Gaia DR3 parallax zero-point systematics (about 0.02 mas) add about 14%. True size: the apparent size times the distance (apparent size: OpenNGC (Mattia Verga, CC BY-SA 4.0), commit 4e2398a2). Mass: Hunt & Reffert 2024, A&A 686, A42 (Gaia DR3 cluster catalogue, VizieR J/A+A/686/A42), retrieved 2026-10-21, NGC 3603: total 8,584 ± 1,720 Suns.
More deep-sky objects: Wishing Well Cluster (NGC 3532) · Running Chicken Nebula (IC 2944) · Southern Pleiades (IC 2602) · NGC 3324 (Nebula and Cluster) · NGC 3114 (Open Cluster) · Jewel Box Cluster (NGC 4755)