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Common cluster 16 EP

NGC 6204

RA 251.5396° · Dec -47.0170° · openngc

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Score breakdown

· 3 badges
16 pts · Common
Common 22 pts → Uncommon
  • Star cluster +7
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) +6
  • Open cluster +3
Total score 16

6 more points to reach Uncommon.

Badges

  • Star cluster · +7
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) · +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 8.2 it is just past naked-eye reach — ordinary binoculars will pull it in, over in Ara.
  • 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 June — 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. ≈ 71.2 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

constellation
Ara
dist ly
4051.6273
dso type
OCl
mag
8.2
name
NGC 6204
radial velocity kms
12
redshift
0
size arcmin
4.5

Nearby objects

About NGC 6204

NGC 6204 is a common cluster. It lies about 4,051.6 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Ara and shines at apparent magnitude 8.2.

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 6204 in the constellation Ara. At apparent magnitude 8.2, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, NGC 6204 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 6204 is a common cluster

NGC 6204 scores 16 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the common tier. Another 6 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 3 science badges — Star cluster, Distant (over 1,000 light-years) 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.