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Star cluster

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Open star cluster · 2.5 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.

TypeStar cluster
ConstellationCygnus
Distance2,103 pc (6.9 thousand ly)
Age2.5 billion years
Member stars (MWSC)133
Reddening E(B−V)1.82
SourceMWSC (Kharchenko et al. 2013)
Right ascension (J2000)20h 18m 20.9s
Declination (J2000)+31° 12′ 36″

In the sky

Visible from the whole Northern Hemisphere and south to latitude 59° S. North of latitude 59° N it never sets. It stands highest at midnight in July, the best time to observe it.

Through a telescope from Earth

Light's journey

The light you see tonight set out 6,859 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 122 million years.

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