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Uncommon cluster 24 EP

Foxhead Cluster

RA 295.3254° · Dec 40.1867° · openngc

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Score breakdown

· 4 badges
24 pts · Uncommon
Uncommon 34 pts → Rare
  • Has a proper name +8
  • Star cluster +7
  • Bright deep-sky object +6
  • Open cluster +3
Total score 24

10 more points to reach Rare.

Badges

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

  • 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 7.3 it is just past naked-eye reach — ordinary binoculars will pull it in, over in Cygnus.
  • Northern sky. It rides the northern half of the sky — an easier target the further north you are.
  • 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.

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
Cyg
dso type
OCl
mag
7.3
name
Foxhead Cluster
named
yes
radial velocity kms
3
redshift
0
size arcmin
6.9

Nearby objects

About Foxhead Cluster

Foxhead Cluster is an uncommon cluster. It sits in the constellation Cyg and shines at apparent magnitude 7.3.

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 Foxhead Cluster in the constellation Cyg. At apparent magnitude 7.3, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, Foxhead 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 Foxhead Cluster is an uncommon cluster

Foxhead Cluster scores 24 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the uncommon tier. Another 10 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 4 science badges — Star cluster, 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.