About Upper Sword
Upper Sword is an epic cluster. It sits in the constellation Ori and shines at apparent magnitude 4.2.
A star cluster still wrapped in the nebula that made it — newborn stars lighting up their own birth cloud.
Epic cluster 53 EP
Upper Sword
RA 83.7900° · Dec -4.4251° · openngc
Score breakdown
· 6 badgesEpic 78 pts → Anomaly
- Bright enough for the unaided eye +14
- Cluster still wrapped in its gas +12
- Has a proper name +8
- Star cluster +7
- Bright deep-sky object +6
- In Orion's hunting ground +6
Total score 53
25 more points to reach Anomaly.
Badges
- Star cluster · +7
- Bright deep-sky object · +6
- Has a proper name · +8
- Cluster still wrapped in its gas · +12
- In Orion's hunting ground · +6
- Bright enough for the unaided eye · +14
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 4.2 you can see it with your own eyes from a dark site, over in Orion.
- Seen from everywhere. It sits almost on the celestial equator, so it can be seen from essentially anywhere on Earth.
- Best time of year. It stands highest in the middle of the night around December — 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.
What's in a name
- Named. Notable enough to have earned a proper name, not just a catalogue number.
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
- Ori
- dso type
- Cl+N
- mag
- 4.2
- name
- Upper Sword
- named
- yes
- radial velocity kms
- 28
- redshift
- 0.0001
- size arcmin
- 9
Nearby objects
How to see it
Look for Upper Sword in the constellation Ori. At apparent magnitude 4.2, it can be glimpsed with the unaided eye under dark skies.
Like any astronomical target, Upper Sword 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 Upper Sword is an epic cluster
Upper Sword scores 53 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the epic tier. Another 25 points would lift it into a rarer tier.
That score comes from 6 science badges — Star cluster, Bright deep-sky object, Has a proper name, Cluster still wrapped in its gas, In Orion's hunting ground 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.