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Rare cluster 37 EP

NGC 6541

RA 272.0097° · Dec -43.7159° · openngc

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Score breakdown

· 4 badges
37 pts · Rare
Rare 50 pts → Epic
  • Globular cluster +14
  • Coming towards us +10
  • Star cluster +7
  • Bright deep-sky object +6
Total score 37

13 more points to reach Epic.

Badges

  • Star cluster · +7
  • Bright deep-sky object · +6
  • Globular cluster · +14
  • Coming towards us · +10

Trivia

What it actually is

  • What it actually is. A globular cluster: hundreds of thousands of stars packed into a ball a few dozen light-years across, orbiting far out in the galaxy's halo.

Sense of scale

  • Sense of scale. Stand on a planet near its core and the night sky would blaze with thousands of stars brighter than Venus. There would be no true darkness.

Find it in the sky

  • How to spot it. At magnitude 7.3 it is just past naked-eye reach — ordinary binoculars will pull it in, over in Corona Australis.
  • 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. Globulars glow yellow-orange because they are ancient — around 12 billion years old, with every hot blue star long since burned out.

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
CrA
dso type
GCl
mag
7.32
name
NGC 6541
radial velocity kms
-164
size arcmin
7.5

Nearby objects

About NGC 6541

NGC 6541 is a rare cluster. It sits in the constellation CrA and shines at apparent magnitude 7.32.

A globular cluster: hundreds of thousands of stars packed into a ball a few dozen light-years across, orbiting far out in the galaxy's halo.

How to see it

Look for NGC 6541 in the constellation CrA. At apparent magnitude 7.32, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, NGC 6541 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 6541 is a rare cluster

NGC 6541 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 4 science badges — Star cluster, Bright deep-sky object, Globular cluster 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.