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Rare cluster 36 EP

Wild Duck Cluster

RA 282.7750° · Dec -6.2700° · openngc

Real photograph of Wild Duck Cluster 📷 Real photo
ESO (CC BY 4.0)
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Score breakdown

· 5 badges
36 pts · Rare
Rare 50 pts → Epic
  • Messier object +12
  • Has a proper name +8
  • Star cluster +7
  • Bright deep-sky object +6
  • Open cluster +3
Total score 36

14 more points to reach Epic.

Badges

  • Star cluster · +7
  • Messier object · +12
  • Bright deep-sky object · +6
  • Has a proper name · +8
  • Open cluster · +3

Trivia

Hard to believe

  • Messier object. One of the 110 showpieces of the Messier list — catalogued as M11.

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 5.8 you can see it with your own eyes from a dark site, over in Scutum.
  • Seen from everywhere. It sits almost on the celestial equator, so it can be seen from essentially anywhere on Earth.
  • Best time of year. It stands highest in the middle of the night around July — 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.

What's in a name

  • Named. Notable enough to have earned a proper name, not just a catalogue number.

Properties

aliases
Amas de l'Ecu de Sobieski
constellation
Sct
dso type
OCl
mag
5.8
messier
yes
messier number
011
name
Wild Duck Cluster
named
yes
radial velocity kms
36
redshift
0.0001
size arcmin
9

Nearby objects

About Wild Duck Cluster

Wild Duck Cluster is a rare cluster. It sits in the constellation Sct and shines at apparent magnitude 5.8.

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 Wild Duck Cluster in the constellation Sct. At apparent magnitude 5.8, it can be glimpsed with the unaided eye under dark skies.

Like any astronomical target, Wild Duck Cluster 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 Wild Duck Cluster is a rare cluster

Wild Duck Cluster scores 36 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the rare tier. Another 14 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 5 science badges — Star cluster, Messier object, Bright deep-sky object, Has a proper name 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.