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NGC 6322 — Open Cluster in Scorpius

Open Cluster Good (59/100)
Magnitude 6.0m OpenCluster Scorpius (Sco) Visible
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1Properties

Magnitude 6.0
Angular Size 6.3′
Cl, vL, pRi, lC (place of * nf)

Position & Identifiers

RA 17h 18m 25.8s
Dec -42° 56' 02.4"
Constellation Scorpius (Sco)
Catalog NGC 6322
Physical size
8.2 light-years across — about 1.9× the Sun-to-Alpha-Centauri distance

2How easy to spot?

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Telescope Bortle 3 Bortle 4 Bortle 5
80mm refr. Easy Easy Easy
150mm Newt. Easy Easy Easy
C8 203mm Easy Easy Easy
Easy Medium Hard Very hard Impossible

Bortle 3 = rural · 4 = outer suburbs · 5 = suburbs

Easy on Seestar S50
At 150mm under B5 skies you should resolve about 20 of 60 members.

3Visibility

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Best season May – Jul (peak: Jun)

4 Eyepiece View

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125x TFOV: 0.4° Lim. mag: 13.6
N E

NGC 6322 · 6.3′ diameter

5 Best Magnification

6Where this cluster sits in time

1 Myr 10 Myr 100 Myr 1 Gyr 10 Gyr NGC 2362 Pleiades Hyades M67 NGC 188 NGC 6322 15 Myr

Open clusters span more than four orders of magnitude in age — from newborn OB associations to ancient, metal-rich survivors.

7 Colour-Magnitude Diagram

A cluster's colour-magnitude diagram reveals its age: the bluer the turn-off point where the main sequence bends into red giants, the younger the cluster.

Loading member data…

Each point is a Gaia-DR3 member. Colour encodes spectral type; size reflects membership probability.

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8 Classification Decoder

Nearby in the Sky

Other targets within a few degrees — pan your scope a little and keep exploring.

Visibility scores assume a 150 mm Newton at Bortle 4.

NGC 6318
Hard+
Open cluster
Open Cluster mag 12.0 3.5° Scorpius
NGC 6259
Easy
Open cluster
Open Cluster mag 8.0 3.6° Scorpius
NGC 6388
Easy
Globular cluster — dense ball of ancient stars
Globular Cluster mag 6.9 3.7° Scorpius
NGC 6249
Easy
Open cluster
Open Cluster mag 8.2 4.2° Scorpius
NGC 6268
Easy
Open cluster
Open Cluster mag 10.0 4.4° Scorpius
V861 Sco
Medium
Eclipsing binary, period 7.8d
Variable Star mag 6.15 4.6° Scorpius
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