Globular Clusters & Pulsars | 3D Explorer v2 Pro

Astronomer tools

Pulsar display

How pulsars look. Quick toggles also live on the bottom bar.

All-sky field pulsars

Show ~4000 Milky Way pulsars

The wider pulsar population from the ATNF catalogue. Distances are model-derived (not cluster pulsars).

Colour pulsars by Applies to cluster & field pulsars.

Spin speed Visual only. Each pulsar still spins relative to its real period.

Filters

Trim which globular clusters are shown.

Max distance from Sun (kpc) Hide distant clusters to declutter.

Min pulsars Only clusters hosting at least this many pulsars.

Min mass (M☉) Uses the Baumgardt mass where available.

Name contains Matches cluster id / name.

Sky Observer

Your location & time, to read a target's sky position (Alt/Az, LST, hour angle).

Latitude (deg) Observer latitude.

Longitude (deg) East positive (Bonn ≈ 7.1°E).

Time (UTC) Leave empty = now.

Display mode Coordinates in panel.

Alt / Az

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LST / HA

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Reference overlays

Reference planes and the Sun→target line. Also on the bottom bar.

Galactic plane

Equatorial plane

Ecliptic plane

Sun line

Your horizon

“Your horizon” draws your local sky at the Sun for the location/time above — objects above the disk are up in your sky.

Camera

Jump the view to a landmark.

Home

Galactic center

Sun

Earth view

Top-down

Edge-on

“Earth view” stands you at the Sun looking out. Set a location/time in Sky Observer to look toward your local zenith with the horizon shown.

Compare & export

Add clusters from their info panel, or list names below. Export downloads a CSV (includes NE2025 DM when enabled).

Cluster names

Run NE2025 DM

Ready.

Performance

Quality Low reduces pixel ratio while keeping brightness.

Show FPS Useful on laptops.

Data sources

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Globular Clusters & Pulsars — 3D Explorer

A flythrough of our galaxy showing where globular clusters and pulsars sit in 3D. The hazy Milky Way around them is a decorative particle cloud — it's only there to give you a sense of orientation. Distances are real and to scale relative to one another.

What you're looking at

Globular clusters (warm gold dots) — dense, ancient balls of hundreds of thousands of stars orbiting the galaxy. Click one to see its size, mass, distance and the pulsars it hosts.
Pulsars — rapidly spinning neutron stars that sweep beams of radio light like a lighthouse. The cone on a pulsar is that beam (point at the star, flaring outward).
Cluster pulsars live inside globular clusters and appear when you select a cluster.
All-sky (field) pulsars — the wider Milky Way population from the ATNF catalogue. Turn them on with the All Pulsars button. Cyan = in a binary, magenta = isolated. Hover or click one to spin up its beam and read its details.

Getting around

Move: drag to rotate · scroll / pinch to zoom · right-drag (or two-finger) to pan.
Search: type a cluster (NGC 104, Ter 5) or pulsar (J0024-7204) and press Enter to fly there.
Select: click a cluster or pulsar to pin its info panel. Esc unpins and returns to your previous view.
Bottom bar: jump the camera, toggle reference planes / the Sun line, show All Pulsars, or Dim Galaxy to fade the Milky Way so pulsars stand out.
ASTRONOMER (top right): filters, your observing location & time, compare/export, and display options.

For the astronomers

Colour by spin period, dispersion measure (DM), or binary status (Astronomer → Pulsars).
Spin speed is mapped from each pulsar's real period (ms pulsars spin fast, slow pulsars crawl), modulated by the spin-scale slider.
Field-pulsar distances are model-derived: catalogue DIST_A where available, otherwise computed from DM + (l, b) via the NE2025 electron-density model — these are estimates, not direct measurements.
Sky Observer: set latitude/longitude/time to read Alt/Az, LST and hour angle for a target.

Data sources

Cluster positions, distances & properties — Holger Baumgardt's catalogue (Baumgardt & Vasiliev 2021).
Cluster pulsars — Paulo Freire's Globular Cluster Pulsar catalogue (GCpsr).
All-sky pulsars — ATNF Pulsar Catalogue (psrcat), refreshed periodically.
Cluster thumbnails — Holger Baumgardt's image archive.

Built for astronomical visualization and outreach. Catalogue data is refreshed automatically from the sources above.

Made with ❤️ by Fazal Kareem.

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Hover preview — click a cluster to pin

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Galactic (l,b)

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V mag

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Core r_c

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Half-light r_h

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Tidal r_t

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Mass

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RA (J2000)

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Dec (J2000)

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Alt/Az (observer)

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Pulsars in this cluster

click empty space to unpin