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Star cluster

NGC 6514

Open star cluster · 7.9 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
ConstellationSagittarius
Distance1,093 pc (3.6 thousand ly)
Age7.9 million years
Member stars (MWSC)102
Reddening E(B−V)0.33
SourceMWSC (Kharchenko et al. 2013)
Right ascension (J2000)18h 02m 34.8s
Declination (J2000)−22° 59′ 42″

In the sky

Visible from the whole Southern Hemisphere and north to latitude 67° N. South of latitude 67° S it never sets. It stands highest at midnight in June, the best time to observe it.

Through a telescope from Earth

Light's journey

The light you see tonight set out around 1540 BC. At the speed of Voyager 1, the fastest craft leaving the Solar System (16.9 km per second), the trip would take 63 million years.

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