About Melotte 71
Melotte 71 is a common cluster. It sits in the constellation Pup and shines at apparent magnitude 7.1.
An open cluster: a few hundred stars born together out of one collapsing cloud, still drifting along in loose formation.
Common cluster 21 EP
Melotte 71
RA 114.3900° · Dec -12.0550° · openngc
Score breakdown
· 4 badgesCommon 22 pts → Uncommon
- Star cluster +7
- Bright deep-sky object +6
- Big on the sky +5
- Open cluster +3
Total score 21
1 more point to reach Uncommon.
Badges
- Star cluster · +7
- Bright deep-sky object · +6
- Open cluster · +3
- Big on the sky · +5
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 7.1 it is just past naked-eye reach — ordinary binoculars will pull it in, over in Puppis.
- 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 January — 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.
Properties
- constellation
- Pup
- dso type
- OCl
- mag
- 7.1
- name
- Melotte 71
- radial velocity kms
- 50
- redshift
- 0.0002
- size arcmin
- 14.4
How to see it
Look for Melotte 71 in the constellation Pup. At apparent magnitude 7.1, it is an easy target for binoculars.
Like any astronomical target, Melotte 71 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 Melotte 71 is a common cluster
Melotte 71 scores 21 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the common tier. Another 1 point would lift it into a rarer tier.
That score comes from 4 science badges — Star cluster, Bright deep-sky object, Open cluster and Big on the sky — 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.