Star cluster
Melotte 111
Open star cluster · 692 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 | Coma Berenices |
| Distance | 87 pc (283.8 ly) |
| Age | 692 million years |
| Member stars (MWSC) | 298 |
| Reddening E(B−V) | 0.00 |
| Metallicity [Fe/H] | 0.07 |
| Source | MWSC (Kharchenko et al. 2013) |
| Right ascension (J2000) | 12h 23m 56.4s |
| Declination (J2000) | +26° 18′ 00″ |
In the sky
Visible from the whole Northern Hemisphere and south to latitude 64° S. North of latitude 64° N it never sets. It stands highest at midnight in March, the best time to observe it.
Through a telescope from Earth
Light's journey
The light you see tonight set out around the year 1742. At the speed of Voyager 1, the fastest craft leaving the Solar System (16.9 km per second), the trip would take 5.0 million years.