About IC 1848
IC 1848 is an epic cluster. It sits in the constellation Cas and shines at apparent magnitude 6.5.
A star cluster still wrapped in the nebula that made it — newborn stars lighting up their own birth cloud.
Epic cluster 51 EP
IC 1848
RA 42.7941° · Dec 60.4025° · openngc
Score breakdown
· 6 badgesEpic 78 pts → Anomaly
- Cluster still wrapped in its gas +12
- Bigger on the sky than the full Moon +12
- Coming towards us +10
- Star cluster +7
- Bright deep-sky object +6
- Never sets (northern circumpolar) +4
Total score 51
27 more points to reach Anomaly.
Badges
- Star cluster · +7
- Bright deep-sky object · +6
- Cluster still wrapped in its gas · +12
- Never sets (northern circumpolar) · +4
- Bigger on the sky than the full Moon · +12
- Coming towards us · +10
Trivia
What it actually is
- What it actually is. A star cluster still wrapped in the nebula that made it — newborn stars lighting up their own birth cloud.
Find it in the sky
- How to spot it. At magnitude 6.5 it is just past naked-eye reach — ordinary binoculars will pull it in, over in Cassiopeia.
- Never sets. So far north that from Britain, Canada or northern Europe it never dips below the horizon — it is up every clear night of the year.
- Best time of year. It stands highest in the middle of the night around November — that's when to go looking.
Its true colour
- Its true colour. The stars are blue-white and brand new; the gas around them glows red, ionised by their ultraviolet glare.
How we came to know it
- The Index Catalogue. The IC was the 1895 and 1908 supplement to the NGC — the first catalogue in history to be filled largely with objects found on photographic plates rather than by eye.
Properties
- constellation
- Cas
- dso type
- Cl+N
- mag
- 6.5
- name
- IC 1848
- radial velocity kms
- -30
- size arcmin
- 40
How to see it
Look for IC 1848 in the constellation Cas. At apparent magnitude 6.5, it is an easy target for binoculars.
Like any astronomical target, IC 1848 is best seen from a dark site away from city lights, and when it is above the horizon depends on your latitude and the time of year. The visibility panel above works out tonight's viewing window for your saved location.
Why IC 1848 is an epic cluster
IC 1848 scores 51 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the epic tier. Another 27 points would lift it into a rarer tier.
That score comes from 6 science badges — Star cluster, Bright deep-sky object, Cluster still wrapped in its gas, Never sets (northern circumpolar), Bigger on the sky than the full Moon and Coming towards us — each earned for a real, measurable property of the object. Rarity on Spacedle is never random: the more remarkable an object's astrophysics, the more badges it collects, the higher it scores, and the rarer it ranks.