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IC 2602, the southern Plejades in the constellation
Carina
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Object description:
The open cluster IC2602 is shown against the
background of the southern milky way in the constellation Carina. The cluster
is located at a distance of about 550 light years and thus it is one of the
nearest open clusters. The apparent diameter is about 50 arcminutes which is
nearly two times the diameter of the Moon. The brightest star of the cluster is
theta Carinae with a brightness of 2.8 mag. Because of its striking appearance,
the cluster is also called as Southern Pleiades, even if it does not reach the
diameter and brightness of its northern counterpart. The age of IC2602 is
between 13 and 50 million years.
The image left shows a comparison to
the full moon.
Click
here or the thumbnail at left to load a larger image. |
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