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Uncommon cluster 22 EP

NGC 2645

RA 129.7630° · Dec -46.2273° · openngc

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Score breakdown

· 4 badges
22 pts · Uncommon
Uncommon 34 pts → Rare
  • Star cluster +7
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) +6
  • Bright deep-sky object +6
  • Open cluster +3
Total score 22

12 more points to reach Rare.

Badges

  • Star cluster · +7
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) · +6
  • Bright deep-sky object · +6
  • Open cluster · +3

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 7.3 it is just past naked-eye reach — ordinary binoculars will pull it in, 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. ≈ 109.6 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

constellation
Vel
dist ly
6236.2524
dso type
OCl
mag
7.32
name
NGC 2645
radial velocity kms
17
redshift
0.0001
size arcmin
6.6

About NGC 2645

NGC 2645 is an uncommon cluster. It lies about 6,236.3 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Vel and shines at apparent magnitude 7.32.

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 2645 in the constellation Vel. At apparent magnitude 7.32, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, NGC 2645 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 2645 is an uncommon cluster

NGC 2645 scores 22 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the uncommon tier. Another 12 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 4 science badges — Star cluster, Distant (over 1,000 light-years), Bright deep-sky object and Open 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.