Epic cluster 53 EP

NGC 2422

RA 114.1459° · Dec -14.4826° · openngc

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Score breakdown

· 7 badges

53 pts · Epic

Epic 78 pts → Anomaly

Bright enough for the unaided eye +14
Messier object +12
Star cluster +7
Distant (over 1,000 light-years) +6
Bright deep-sky object +6
Big on the sky +5
Open cluster +3

Total score 53

25 more points to reach Anomaly.

Badges

Star cluster · +7
Distant (over 1,000 light-years) · +6
Messier object · +12
Bright deep-sky object · +6
Open cluster · +3
Big on the sky · +5
Bright enough for the unaided eye · +14

Trivia

Hard to believe

Messier object. One of the 110 showpieces of the Messier list — catalogued as M47.

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 4.4 you can see it with your own eyes from a dark site, over in Puppis.
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.

Properties

constellation: Pup
dist ly: 1576.3944
dso type: OCl
mag: 4.4
messier: yes
messier number: 047
name: NGC 2422
radial velocity kms: 34
redshift: 0.0001
size arcmin: 19.8

Nearby objects

About NGC 2422

NGC 2422 is an epic cluster. It lies about 1,576.4 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Pup and shines at apparent magnitude 4.4.

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 NGC 2422 in the constellation Pup. At apparent magnitude 4.4, it can be glimpsed with the unaided eye under dark skies.

Like any astronomical target, NGC 2422 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 2422 is an epic cluster

NGC 2422 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 7 science badges — Star cluster, Distant (over 1,000 light-years), Messier object, Bright deep-sky object, Open cluster, Big on the sky 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.