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Uncommon cluster 29 EP

NGC 6882

RA 302.9828° · Dec 26.4888° · openngc

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Score breakdown

· 5 badges
29 pts · Uncommon
Uncommon 34 pts → Rare
  • Coming towards us +10
  • Star cluster +7
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) +6
  • Open cluster +3
  • Faint fuzzy (mag > 13) +3
Total score 29

5 more points to reach Rare.

Badges

  • Star cluster · +7
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) · +6
  • Open cluster · +3
  • Coming towards us · +10
  • Faint fuzzy (mag > 13) · +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 14.1 it is far too faint for the eye: this one belongs to cameras and long exposures, over in Vulpecula.
  • 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.

Could we get there?

  • Verdict. Impossible with our current technology — and the next millennium of it.

Getting there

  • Aboard Voyager 1. ≈ 27.5 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

constellation
Vul
dist ly
1566.7772
dso type
OCl
mag
14.1
name
NGC 6882
radial velocity kms
-18
size arcmin
7.5

About NGC 6882

NGC 6882 is an uncommon cluster. It lies about 1,566.8 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Vul and shines at apparent magnitude 14.1.

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 6882 in the constellation Vul. At apparent magnitude 14.1, it takes a larger telescope or a long-exposure image to capture.

Like any astronomical target, NGC 6882 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 6882 is an uncommon cluster

NGC 6882 scores 29 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the uncommon tier. Another 5 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 5 science badges — Star cluster, Distant (over 1,000 light-years), Open cluster, Coming towards us and Faint fuzzy (mag > 13) — 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.