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Star cluster

Collinder 463

Open star cluster · 282 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.

TypeStar cluster
ConstellationCassiopeia
Distance800 pc (2.6 thousand ly)
Age282 million years
Member stars (MWSC)567
Reddening E(B−V)0.30
SourceMWSC (Kharchenko et al. 2013)
Right ascension (J2000)1h 49m 12.0s
Declination (J2000)+71° 46′ 48″

In the sky

Visible from the whole Northern Hemisphere and south to latitude 18° S. North of latitude 18° N it never sets. It stands highest at midnight in October, the best time to observe it.

Through a telescope from Earth

Light's journey

The light you see tonight set out around 584 BC. At the speed of Voyager 1, the fastest craft leaving the Solar System (16.9 km per second), the trip would take 46 million years.

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