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Rare cluster 37 EP

NGC 5460

RA 211.8659° · Dec -48.3425° · openngc

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Score breakdown

· 6 badges
37 pts · Rare
Rare 50 pts → Epic
  • Coming towards us +10
  • 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 37

13 more points to reach Epic.

Badges

  • Star cluster · +7
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) · +6
  • Bright deep-sky object · +6
  • Open cluster · +3
  • Big on the sky · +5
  • 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 5.6 you can see it with your own eyes from a dark site, over in Centaurus.
  • 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 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. ≈ 42.8 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

constellation
Cen
dist ly
2434
dso type
OCl
mag
5.6
name
NGC 5460
radial velocity kms
-5
size arcmin
13.2

About NGC 5460

NGC 5460 is a rare cluster. It lies about 2,434 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Cen and shines at apparent magnitude 5.6.

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 5460 in the constellation Cen. At apparent magnitude 5.6, it can be glimpsed with the unaided eye under dark skies.

Like any astronomical target, NGC 5460 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 5460 is a rare cluster

NGC 5460 scores 37 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the rare tier. Another 13 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

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