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Uncommon cluster 23 EP

NGC 6451

RA 267.6693° · Dec -30.2116° · openngc

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Score breakdown

· 4 badges
23 pts · Uncommon
Uncommon 34 pts → Rare
  • Coming towards us +10
  • Star cluster +7
  • Open cluster +3
  • On the zodiac +3
Total score 23

11 more points to reach Rare.

Badges

  • Star cluster · +7
  • Open cluster · +3
  • On the zodiac · +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

  • 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 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.

Its true colour

  • Its true colour. Open clusters look blue-white because they are young — their hottest, bluest stars have not had time to die yet.

How we came to know it

  • The New General Catalogue. Its NGC number comes from J. L. E. Dreyer's 1888 catalogue, itself built on decades of sky sweeps by William Herschel and his sister Caroline.

Properties

constellation
Sco
dso type
OCl
mag
8.2
name
NGC 6451
radial velocity kms
-23
size arcmin
7.2

Nearby objects

About NGC 6451

NGC 6451 is an uncommon cluster. It sits in the constellation Sco 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 6451 in the constellation Sco. At apparent magnitude 8.2, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, NGC 6451 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 6451 is an uncommon cluster

NGC 6451 scores 23 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the uncommon tier. Another 11 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 4 science badges — Star cluster, Open cluster, On the zodiac 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.