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Rare cluster 41 EP

NGC 6250

RA 254.4836° · Dec -45.9366° · openngc

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Score breakdown

· 5 badges
41 pts · Rare
Rare 50 pts → Epic
  • Cluster still wrapped in its gas +12
  • Coming towards us +10
  • Star cluster +7
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) +6
  • Bright deep-sky object +6
Total score 41

9 more points to reach Epic.

Badges

  • Star cluster · +7
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) · +6
  • Bright deep-sky object · +6
  • Cluster still wrapped in its gas · +12
  • Coming towards us · +10

Trivia

What it actually is

  • What it actually is. A star cluster still wrapped in the nebula that made it — newborn stars lighting up their own birth cloud.

Sense of scale

  • In perspective. Far away by human standards, yet still a local address inside the Milky Way's spiral arms.

Find it in the sky

  • How to spot it. At magnitude 5.9 you can see it with your own eyes from a dark site, 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. ≈ 58 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).
  • Fastest probe ever. ≈ 5.2 million years even at the Parker Solar Probe's 192 km/s.

Properties

constellation
Ara
dist ly
3301.1741
dso type
Cl+N
mag
5.9
name
NGC 6250
radial velocity kms
-17
size arcmin
9.6

About NGC 6250

NGC 6250 is a rare cluster. It lies about 3,301.2 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Ara and shines at apparent magnitude 5.9.

A star cluster still wrapped in the nebula that made it — newborn stars lighting up their own birth cloud.

How to see it

Look for NGC 6250 in the constellation Ara. At apparent magnitude 5.9, it can be glimpsed with the unaided eye under dark skies.

Like any astronomical target, NGC 6250 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 6250 is a rare cluster

NGC 6250 scores 41 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the rare tier. Another 9 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, Cluster still wrapped in its gas 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.