Star cluster
Berkeley 55
Open star cluster · 372 million years
An open cluster of stars born together from the same gas cloud in the Milky Way’s disc; the Galaxy’s tidal forces will disperse it within a few hundred million years. Position, distance, age and member count come from the MWSC catalogue; the total brightness is roughly estimated from the member count.
| Type | Star cluster |
|---|---|
| Constellation | Cygnus |
| Distance | 1,700 pc (5.5 thousand ly) |
| Age | 372 million years |
| Member stars (MWSC) | 66 |
| Reddening E(B−V) | 1.60 |
| Source | MWSC (Kharchenko et al. 2013) |
| Right ascension (J2000) | 21h 16m 59.9s |
| Declination (J2000) | +51° 45′ 54″ |
In the sky
Visible from the whole Northern Hemisphere and south to latitude 38° S. North of latitude 38° N it never sets. It stands highest at midnight in August, the best time to observe it.
Through a telescope from Earth
Light's journey
The light you see tonight set out 5,545 years ago. At that time the first farming villages were being founded; there was no writing yet. At the speed of Voyager 1, the fastest craft leaving the Solar System (16.9 km per second), the trip would take 98 million years.