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Uncommon cluster 26 EP

NGC 4372

RA 186.4391° · Dec -72.6591° · openngc

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Score breakdown

· 3 badges
26 pts · Uncommon
Uncommon 34 pts → Rare
  • Globular cluster +14
  • Star cluster +7
  • Big on the sky +5
Total score 26

8 more points to reach Rare.

Badges

  • Star cluster · +7
  • Globular cluster · +14
  • Big on the sky · +5

Trivia

What it actually is

  • What it actually is. A globular cluster: hundreds of thousands of stars packed into a ball a few dozen light-years across, orbiting far out in the galaxy's halo.

Sense of scale

  • Sense of scale. Stand on a planet near its core and the night sky would blaze with thousands of stars brighter than Venus. There would be no true darkness.

Find it in the sky

  • How to spot it. At magnitude 9.8 you'll want a small backyard telescope, over in Musca.
  • 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. Globulars glow yellow-orange because they are ancient — around 12 billion years old, with every hot blue star long since burned out.

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
Mus
dso type
GCl
mag
9.85
name
NGC 4372
radial velocity kms
76
redshift
0.0003
size arcmin
12

About NGC 4372

NGC 4372 is an uncommon cluster. It sits in the constellation Mus and shines at apparent magnitude 9.85.

A globular cluster: hundreds of thousands of stars packed into a ball a few dozen light-years across, orbiting far out in the galaxy's halo.

How to see it

Look for NGC 4372 in the constellation Mus. At apparent magnitude 9.85, a small backyard telescope will bring it into view.

Like any astronomical target, NGC 4372 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 4372 is an uncommon cluster

NGC 4372 scores 26 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the uncommon tier. Another 8 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 3 science badges — Star cluster, Globular 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.