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Common cluster 20 EP

NGC 7245

RA 333.7980° · Dec 54.3426° · openngc

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Score breakdown

· 3 badges
20 pts · Common
Common 22 pts → Uncommon
  • Coming towards us +10
  • Star cluster +7
  • Open cluster +3
Total score 20

2 more points to reach Uncommon.

Badges

  • Star cluster · +7
  • Open cluster · +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 9.2 you'll want a small backyard telescope, over in Lacerta.
  • 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 August — 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
Lac
dso type
OCl
mag
9.2
name
NGC 7245
radial velocity kms
-74
size arcmin
3.9

Nearby objects

About NGC 7245

NGC 7245 is a common cluster. It sits in the constellation Lac and shines at apparent magnitude 9.2.

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 7245 in the constellation Lac. At apparent magnitude 9.2, a small backyard telescope will bring it into view.

Like any astronomical target, NGC 7245 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 7245 is a common cluster

NGC 7245 scores 20 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the common tier. Another 2 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 3 science badges — Star cluster, Open 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.