About Pearl Cluster
Pearl Cluster is a rare cluster. It sits in the constellation Cen and shines at apparent magnitude 5.3.
An open cluster: a few hundred stars born together out of one collapsing cloud, still drifting along in loose formation.
Rare cluster 34 EP
Pearl Cluster
RA 174.0600° · Dec -61.6052° · openngc
Score breakdown
· 5 badgesRare 50 pts → Epic
- Coming towards us +10
- Has a proper name +8
- Star cluster +7
- Bright deep-sky object +6
- Open cluster +3
Total score 34
16 more points to reach Epic.
Badges
- Star cluster · +7
- Bright deep-sky object · +6
- Has a proper name · +8
- Open cluster · +3
- Coming towards us · +10
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
- 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 5.3 you can see it with your own eyes from a dark site, over in Centaurus.
- Southern sky only. So far south it never rises for most of the northern hemisphere. To see it you'd have to travel to Chile, South Africa or Australia.
- Best time of year. It stands highest in the middle of the night around March — that's when to go looking.
Its true colour
- Its true colour. Open clusters look blue-white because they are young — their hottest, bluest stars have not had time to die yet.
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
- Cen
- dso type
- OCl
- mag
- 5.3
- name
- Pearl Cluster
- named
- yes
- radial velocity kms
- -16
- size arcmin
- 6.9
Nearby objects
- Rare HD 306799 star · <0.1° away
- Rare HIP 56556 variable star · <0.1° away
- Trash HD 100943 star · <0.1° away
- Uncommon HD 100840 star · <0.1° away
- Uncommon HD 306798 variable star · <0.1° away
- Common HD 306797 variable star · <0.1° away
- Uncommon HR 4487 star · 0.3° away
- Uncommon HD 100826 star · 0.3° away
How to see it
Look for Pearl Cluster in the constellation Cen. At apparent magnitude 5.3, it can be glimpsed with the unaided eye under dark skies.
Like any astronomical target, Pearl Cluster 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 Pearl Cluster is a rare cluster
Pearl Cluster scores 34 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the rare tier. Another 16 points would lift it into a rarer tier.
That score comes from 5 science badges — Star cluster, Bright deep-sky object, Has a proper name, Open cluster and Coming towards us — 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.