NGC 2281 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 ...

of stars in the northern

constellation A constellation is an area on the celestial sphere in which a group of visible stars forms Asterism (astronomy), a perceived pattern or outline, typically representing an animal, mythological subject, or inanimate object. The origins of the e ...

Auriga AURIGA (''Antenna Ultracriogenica Risonante per l'Indagine Gravitazionale Astronomica'') is an ultracryogenic resonant bar gravitational wave detector in Italy. It is at the Laboratori Nazionali di Legnaro of the Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nuclea ...

. It was discovered by English astronomer

William Herschel Frederick William Herschel (; german: Friedrich Wilhelm Herschel; 15 November 1738 – 25 August 1822) was a German-born British astronomer and composer. He frequently collaborated with his younger sister and fellow astronomer Caroline H ...

on March 4, 1788 and described as a, "cluster of coarsely scattered pretty

right Rights are law, legal, social, or ethics, ethical principles of Liberty, freedom or entitlement; that is, rights are the fundamental normative rules about what is allowed of people or owed to people according to some legal system, social convent ...

stars, pretty rich". The

Trumpler class 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, a ...

for NGC 2281 is I3p, indicating a poor (p) but compact (I) grouping with a wide range of brightness (3). It is located at a distance of approximately from the

Sun The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is a nearly perfect ball of hot plasma, heated to incandescence by nuclear fusion reactions in its core. The Sun radiates this energy mainly as light, ultraviolet, and infrared radi ...

and is 630–661 million years old.

References

External links

*
Image NGC 2281

NGC 2281
* {{DEFAULTSORT:NGC 2281

NGC 2281 NGC 2281 is an open cluster of stars in the northern constellation of Auriga. It was discovered by English astronomer William Herschel on March 4, 1788 and described as a, "cluster of coarsely scattered pretty rightstars, pretty rich". The T ...

2281 Open clusters