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Uncommon cluster 25 EP

NGC 6425

RA 266.7570° · Dec -31.5294° · openngc

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Score breakdown

· 5 badges
25 pts · Uncommon
Uncommon 34 pts → Rare
  • Star cluster +7
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) +6
  • Bright deep-sky object +6
  • Open cluster +3
  • On the zodiac +3
Total score 25

9 more points to reach Rare.

Badges

  • Star cluster · +7
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) · +6
  • Bright deep-sky object · +6
  • Open cluster · +3
  • On the zodiac · +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 7.2 it is just past naked-eye reach — ordinary binoculars will pull it in, over in Scorpius.
  • 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. ≈ 58.1 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

constellation
Sco
dist ly
3304.5187
dso type
OCl
mag
7.2
name
NGC 6425
radial velocity kms
5
redshift
0
size arcmin
4.8

About NGC 6425

NGC 6425 is an uncommon cluster. It lies about 3,304.5 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Sco and shines at apparent magnitude 7.2.

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 6425 in the constellation Sco. At apparent magnitude 7.2, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, NGC 6425 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 6425 is an uncommon cluster

NGC 6425 scores 25 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the uncommon 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, Open cluster and On the zodiac — 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.