NGC 1869 (also known as ESO 85-SC55) is an

open cluster An open cluster is a type of star cluster made of up to a few thousand stars that were formed from the same giant molecular cloud and have roughly the same age. More than 1,100 open clusters have been discovered within the Milky Way galaxy, and ...

in the

Dorado constellation Dorado () is a constellation in the southern sky. It was named in the late 16th century and is now one of the 88 modern constellations. Its name refers to the dolphinfish (''Coryphaena hippurus''), which is known as ''dorado'' in Spanish, althou ...

. It is located within the

Large Magellanic Cloud The Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), or Nubecula Major, is a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way. At a distance of around 50 kiloparsecs (≈160,000 light-years), the LMC is the second- or third-closest galaxy to the Milky Way, after the ...

. It was discovered by

James Dunlop James Dunlop FRSE (31 October 1793 – 22 September 1848) was a Scottish astronomer, noted for his work in Australia. He was employed by Sir Thomas Brisbane to work as astronomer's assistant at his private observatory, once located at Paramat ...

on September 24, 1826, using a telescope reflector with a nine-inch aperture. It is a large cluster of rich scattered stars. It is part of a triple association with

NGC 1871 NGC 1871 (also known as ESO 56-SC85) is an open cluster associated with an emission nebula located in the Dorado constellation within the Large Magellanic Cloud. It was discovered by James Dunlop on November 5, 1826. Its apparent magnitude is 10. ...

and

NGC 1873 NGC 1873 (also known as ESO 85-SC54) is an open cluster associated with an emission nebula located in the Dorado constellation within the Large Magellanic Cloud. It was discovered by James Dunlop on September 24, 1826 and rediscovered by John H ...

. It has an apparent magnitude of 14.0.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:NGC 1869 Dorado ESO objects 1869 Open clusters Astronomical objects discovered in 1826 Large Magellanic Cloud