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Rare cluster 36 EP

IC 2395

RA 130.6255° · Dec -48.1506° · openngc

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Score breakdown

· 5 badges
36 pts · Rare
Rare 50 pts → Epic
  • Bright enough for the unaided eye +14
  • Star cluster +7
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) +6
  • Bright deep-sky object +6
  • Open cluster +3
Total score 36

14 more points to reach Epic.

Badges

  • Star cluster · +7
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) · +6
  • Bright deep-sky object · +6
  • Open cluster · +3
  • Bright enough for the unaided eye · +14

Trivia

What it actually is

  • What it actually is. An open cluster: a few hundred stars born together out of one collapsing cloud, still drifting along in loose formation.

Sense of scale

  • In perspective. Far away by human standards, yet still a local address inside the Milky Way's spiral arms.
  • Sense of scale. Gravity is not strong enough to hold it. Within a few hundred million years these siblings will be scattered right around the galaxy.

Find it in the sky

  • How to spot it. At magnitude 4.6 you can see it with your own eyes from a dark site, over in Vela.
  • Southern sky. It rides the southern half of the sky — an easier target the further south you are.
  • Best time of year. It stands highest in the middle of the night around January — that's when to go looking.

Could we get there?

  • Verdict. Impossible with our current technology — and the next millennium of it.

Getting there

  • Aboard Voyager 1. ≈ 41.6 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

constellation
Vel
dist ly
2365.1632
dso type
OCl
mag
4.6
name
IC 2395
radial velocity kms
18
redshift
0.0001
size arcmin
6

About IC 2395

IC 2395 is a rare cluster. It lies about 2,365.2 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Vel and shines at apparent magnitude 4.6.

An open cluster: a few hundred stars born together out of one collapsing cloud, still drifting along in loose formation.

How to see it

Look for IC 2395 in the constellation Vel. At apparent magnitude 4.6, it can be glimpsed with the unaided eye under dark skies.

Like any astronomical target, IC 2395 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 2395 is a rare cluster

IC 2395 scores 36 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the rare tier. Another 14 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 5 science badges — Star cluster, Distant (over 1,000 light-years), Bright deep-sky object, Open cluster and Bright enough for the unaided eye — 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.