Star cluster
Collinder 74
Open star cluster · 1.2 billion 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 | Orion |
| Distance | 2,637 pc (8.6 thousand ly) |
| Age | 1.2 billion years |
| Member stars (MWSC) | 114 |
| Reddening E(B−V) | 0.60 |
| Source | MWSC (Kharchenko et al. 2013) |
| Right ascension (J2000) | 5h 48m 35.3s |
| Declination (J2000) | +7° 22′ 48″ |
In the sky
Visible from the whole Northern Hemisphere and south to latitude 83° S. It stands highest at midnight in December, the best time to observe it.
Through a telescope from Earth
Light's journey
The light you see tonight set out 8,601 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 153 million years.