NGC 2477 (also known as Caldwell 71) 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
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 ...
Puppis
Puppis is a constellation in the southern sky. Puppis, the Latin translation of "poop deck", was originally part of an over-large constellation Argo Navis (the ship of Jason and the Argonauts), which centuries after its initial description, was ...
. It contains about 300 stars,
and was discovered by
Abbé Lacaille in 1751.
The cluster's age has been estimated at about 700 million years.
Visual appearance
NGC 2477 is a stunning cluster, almost as extensive in the sky as the full moon. It has been called "one of the top open clusters in the sky",
like a highly resolved
globular cluster without the dense center characteristic of globular clusters.
Burnham Burnham may refer to:
Places Canada
*Burnham, Saskatchewan
England
*Burnham, Buckinghamshire
** Burnham railway station
** Burnham Grammar School
*Burnham Green, Hertfordshire, location of The White Horse
* Burnham, Lincolnshire
**High Burnham, ...
notes that several observers have remarked on its richness, and that although it is smaller than
M46 (also an open cluster in Puppis), it is richer and more compact.
Distance
Burnham cites several published distances, ranging from to , where "ly" is the abbreviation for
light year
A light-year, alternatively spelled light year, is a large unit of length used to express astronomical distances and is equivalent to about 9.46 trillion kilometers (), or 5.88 trillion miles ().One trillion here is taken to be 1012 ...
.
Notes
External links
*
{{Ngc25
2477
Open clusters
Puppis
071b
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