Deep-sky object
Southern Pleiades
Southern Pleiades is an open cluster 486 light-years away, in Carina, about 7 light-years across, seen as it was 486 years ago.
The south's answer to the Pleiades, round the star Theta Carinae: a naked-eye cluster the north never sees.
It is on the live 3D map, where it really is.
Key facts
- Type
- open cluster
- Constellation
- Carina
- Distance
- 486 light-years
- Size
- about 7.00 light-years across
- Brightness from Earth
- magnitude 1.9
- Catalogue
- IC 2602
See it from here
Bright enough to see with your own eyes from a dark place.
How the map draws it
Drawn as a soft glow in the manner of its kind at its measured distance, as wide as it measures; the pattern in it is illustrative and its true shape is not drawn — the kind of thing, not this exact one · its catalogued stars are each drawn in their measured direction but gathered at this one distance, because the catalogue’s distances to single stars scatter by more than the cluster is deep; their depth inside it is not measured, and a few may be stars in front or behind.