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EntityQ696260· pop 45· linked from 994 articles

Also known as New General Catalogue 188, C 1, Polarissima Cluster

open cluster in the constellation Cepheus

In the Vinony graph

Vinony's link graph records 994 inbound references to Q696260, and connects out to list of NGC objects (1–1000), Cave Nebula and Cat's Eye Nebula.

It sits within the topics Astronomical objects discovered in 1825, Caldwell objects and Cepheus (constellation).

Vinony links it to 45 Wikipedia language editions.

Key facts

Right ascension
00 48 26
Declination
+85 ° 15.3 ′
Distance
6,000 ly ( 1.85 kpc )
Absolute magnitude v
Unknown
Apparent dimensions v
15 ′
Radius
11.8 ly
Estimated age
6.41 ± 0.33 Gyr
Other designations
Caldwell 1, Cr 6, Mel 2
Constellation
Cepheus

via Wikipedia infobox

Wikidata facts

Distance from Earth
2301.442
Image
NGC 188.jpg
Show 11 more facts
declination component of proper motion
-0.956
Commons category
NGC 188
catalog code
[KPS2012] MWSC 0074
time of discovery or invention
1831-11-03
apparent magnitude
8.1
right ascension
12.1083
declination
85.2550
radial velocity
-41.86
parallax
0.5053
metallicity
0.11
right ascension component of proper motion
-2.308
Sources (1)

via Wikidata · CC0

~1 min read

Encyclopedic overview

HR diagram showing the main sequence turnoff of NGC 188 and M 67, indicating their relatively high ages NGC 188 (also known as Caldwell 1 or the Polarissima Cluster) is an open cluster in the constellation Cepheus. It was discovered by John Herschel in 1825. Unlike most open clusters that drift apart after a few million years because of the gravitational interaction of our Milky Way galaxy, NGC 188 lies far above the plane of the galaxy and is one of the most ancient of open clusters known, at approximately 6.8 billion years old.

NGC 188 is very close to the North Celestial Pole, under five degrees away, and in the constellation of Cepheus at an estimated 6,000 light-years' distance, this puts it slightly above the Milky Way's disc and further from the center of the galaxy than the Sun.

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Q696260” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.

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