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NGC 346
Sign in to saveAlso known as New General Catalogue 346
open cluster in the constellation Tucana
Key facts
- Right ascension
- 00 59 05.090
- Declination
- −72 ° 10 ′ 33.24 ″
- Distance
- 210,000 light-years
- Other designations
- ESO 51-10, N66
- Constellation
- Tucana
via Wikipedia infobox
~2 min read
Encyclopedic overview
NGC 346 is a young open cluster of stars with associated nebula located in the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) that appears in the southern constellation of Tucana. It was discovered August 1, 1826 by Scottish astronomer James Dunlop. J. L. E. Dreyer described it as, "bright, large, very irregular figure, much brighter middle similar to double star, mottled but not resolved". On the outskirts of the cluster is the multiple star system HD 5980, one of the brightest stars in the SMC.
Description
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “NGC 346” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.