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Common cluster 21 EP

NGC 1261

RA 48.0639° · Dec -55.2168° · openngc

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Score breakdown

· 2 badges
21 pts · Common
Common 22 pts → Uncommon
  • Globular cluster +14
  • Star cluster +7
Total score 21

1 more point to reach Uncommon.

Badges

  • Star cluster · +7
  • Globular cluster · +14

Trivia

What it actually is

  • What it actually is. A globular cluster: hundreds of thousands of stars packed into a ball a few dozen light-years across, orbiting far out in the galaxy's halo.

Sense of scale

  • Sense of scale. Stand on a planet near its core and the night sky would blaze with thousands of stars brighter than Venus. There would be no true darkness.

Find it in the sky

  • How to spot it. At magnitude 8.6 it is just past naked-eye reach — ordinary binoculars will pull it in, over in Horologium.
  • 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 November — that's when to go looking.

Its true colour

  • Its true colour. Globulars glow yellow-orange because they are ancient — around 12 billion years old, with every hot blue star long since burned out.

How we came to know it

  • The New General Catalogue. Its NGC number comes from J. L. E. Dreyer's 1888 catalogue, itself built on decades of sky sweeps by William Herschel and his sister Caroline.

Properties

constellation
Hor
dso type
GCl
mag
8.63
name
NGC 1261
radial velocity kms
71
redshift
0.0002
size arcmin
5.1

Nearby objects

About NGC 1261

NGC 1261 is a common cluster. It sits in the constellation Hor and shines at apparent magnitude 8.63.

A globular cluster: hundreds of thousands of stars packed into a ball a few dozen light-years across, orbiting far out in the galaxy's halo.

How to see it

Look for NGC 1261 in the constellation Hor. At apparent magnitude 8.63, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, NGC 1261 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 NGC 1261 is a common cluster

NGC 1261 scores 21 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the common tier. Another 1 point would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 2 science badges — Star cluster and Globular cluster — 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.