← Back to dex
Uncommon cluster 32 EP

NGC 5316

RA 208.4884° · Dec -61.8691° · openngc

Loading sky survey…
🌌 View in 3D star map
Tonight’s visibility

Computing the sky for your location…

Score breakdown

· 5 badges
32 pts · Uncommon
Uncommon 34 pts → Rare
  • Coming towards us +10
  • Star cluster +7
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) +6
  • Bright deep-sky object +6
  • Open cluster +3
Total score 32

2 more points to reach Rare.

Badges

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

  • 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 6 it is just past naked-eye reach — ordinary binoculars will pull it in, 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 April — 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. ≈ 86.2 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

constellation
Cen
dist ly
4904.6015
dso type
OCl
mag
6
name
NGC 5316
radial velocity kms
-14
size arcmin
9.9

About NGC 5316

NGC 5316 is an uncommon cluster. It lies about 4,904.6 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Cen and shines at apparent magnitude 6.

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 5316 in the constellation Cen. At apparent magnitude 6, it can be glimpsed with the unaided eye under dark skies.

Like any astronomical target, NGC 5316 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 5316 is an uncommon cluster

NGC 5316 scores 32 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the uncommon tier. Another 2 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 5 science badges — Star cluster, Distant (over 1,000 light-years), Bright deep-sky object, 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.