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Rare cluster 39 EP

NGC 2548

RA 123.4299° · Dec -5.7504° · openngc

Real photograph of NGC 2548 📷 Real photo
Jim Mazur (CC BY-SA 4.0)
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Score breakdown

· 6 badges
39 pts · Rare
Rare 50 pts → Epic
  • 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 39

11 more points to reach Epic.

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

Trivia

Hard to believe

  • Messier object. One of the 110 showpieces of the Messier list — catalogued as M48.

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 5.8 you can see it with your own eyes from a dark site, over in Hydra.
  • 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 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
Hya
dist ly
2528.9292
dso type
OCl
mag
5.8
messier
yes
messier number
048
name
NGC 2548
radial velocity kms
42
redshift
0.0001
size arcmin
28.2

About NGC 2548

NGC 2548 is a rare cluster. It lies about 2,528.9 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Hya and shines at apparent magnitude 5.8.

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 2548 in the constellation Hya. At apparent magnitude 5.8, it can be glimpsed with the unaided eye under dark skies.

Like any astronomical target, NGC 2548 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 2548 is a rare cluster

NGC 2548 scores 39 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the rare tier. Another 11 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 6 science badges — Star cluster, Distant (over 1,000 light-years), Messier object, Bright deep-sky object, Open cluster and Big on the sky — 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.