List of 15 Brightest Star Clusters
Everyone can do deep-sky observations. To prove the point, we listed here 15 star clusters that are easy to see even with the naked eye. That’s right, you don’t need a fancy, high-cost telescope to view objects that are trillions of kilometers away from us. You only need a smartphone with the Star Walk 2 app that will help you find any sky object in a couple of taps. Get ready to learn more about the bright star clusters, and let’s get started!
Contents
Star clusters list
- 1. Hyades
- 2. Alpha Persei Cluster
- 3. Pleiades
- 4. Coma Star Cluster
- 5. Southern Pleiades
- 6. Omicron Velorum Cluster
- 7. Wishing Well Cluster
- 8. Ptolemy Cluster
- 9. Beehive Cluster
- 10. Omega Centauri
- 11. 47 Tucanae
- 12. Butterfly Cluster
- 13. Jewel Box Cluster
- 14. Double Cluster
- 15. Little Beehive Cluster
- How to find a cluster of stars in the sky?
- Frequently asked questions about star clusters
- Brightest star clusters: bottom line
Star clusters list
In this list, the star clusters are arranged by their apparent magnitude starting with the brightest one.
Note that the limiting magnitude that the average human eye can discern is approximately 5.5 in suburban skies (class 5 on a Bortle scale). In the city sky (class 8) you’ll barely view objects with an apparent magnitude of 4.0. To see more, you can use binoculars or find darker skies.
1. Hyades
- Other names: C 41, Cr 50, Mel 25
- Type: Open cluster
- Magnitude: 0.5
- Constellation: Taurus
- Visible from: Northern Hemisphere
- Best time to see: January-April
The Hyades is the nearest and best-studied open star cluster. About a dozen of the bright Hyades’ stars are visible to the naked eye! To find them, look for the V-shaped group of stars in the evening; the bright reddish star Aldebaran is located nearby.
2. Alpha Persei Cluster
- Other names: Cr 39, Mel 20
- Type: Open cluster
- Magnitude: 1.2
- Constellation: Perseus
- Visible from: Northern Hemisphere
- Best time to see: August-November
The easiest way to find the Alpha Persei Cluster is to locate its brightest member, Alpha Persei or Mirfak, which is also the brightest star in the constellation Perseus. In the Northern Hemisphere, this star cluster is above the horizon every night of the year, although it stays very low in spring.
3. Pleiades
- Other names: Seven Sisters, M45, Cr 42, Mel 22
- Type: Open cluster
- Magnitude: 1.6
- Constellation: Taurus
- Visible from: everywhere
- Best time to see: November
The Pleiades is probably the most famous star cluster — it is bright, beautiful, easy to see, and visible from all over the world. To find Messier 45, gaze overhead at about midnight and look for a tiny dipper-shaped group of stars.
4. Coma Star Cluster
- Other names: Cr 256, Mel 111
- Type: Open cluster
- Magnitude: 1.8
- Constellation: Coma Berenices
- Visible from: Northern Hemisphere
- Best time to see: April
The most outstanding feature of the constellation Coma Berenices, the Coma star cluster, is easy to find at about 9:30 p.m. on an April evening. Look for the bluish-white letter “V” that is formed by faint, almost wispy stars.
5. Southern Pleiades
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- Other names: IC 2602, C 102, Cr 229, Mel 102
- Type: Open cluster
- Magnitude: 1.9
- Constellation: Carina
- Visible from: Southern Hemisphere
- Best time to see: February-March
Wait about an hour after sunset to see the southern namesake of the famous Pleiades. The Southern Pleiades star cluster is 70% fainter than its northern counterpart but still an easy target for the unaided eye. It’s also visible only from the southern latitudes (hence the name).
6. Omicron Velorum Cluster
- Other names: IC 2391, C 85, Cr 191
- Type: Open cluster
- Magnitude: 2.5
- Constellation: Vela
- Visible from: Southern Hemisphere
- Best time to see: March
The star cluster Omicron Velorum takes its name from the brightest of its members. It is a less popular naked-eye object than the other star clusters in the list, but IC 2391 is surely well visible — even our ancestors observed it and described it for the first time in 964.
7. Wishing Well Cluster
- Other names: NGC 3532, C 91, Cr 238, Mel 103
- Type: Open cluster
- Magnitude: 3
- Constellation: Carina
- Visible from: Southern Hemisphere
- Best time to see: March
In 1990, the Wishing Well Cluster became the first target the Hubble Space Telescope ever observed. Through binoculars or a telescope, NGC 3532 resembles silver coins at the bottom of a well (hence its nickname); to the naked eye, it appears as a hazy patch in the sky.
8. Ptolemy Cluster
- Other names: M7, NGC 6475, C 354, Mel 183
- Type: Open cluster
- Magnitude: 3.3
- Constellation: Scorpius
- Visible from: Southern Hemisphere
- Best time to see: June-August
The Ptolemy Cluster is easy to see in the Southern Hemisphere, where it reaches the highest point in the sky at around midnight in mid-June. However, in the northern latitudes, it appears low, so you’ll need an unobstructed horizon to view it from there.
9. Beehive Cluster
- Other names: M44, NGC 2632, Cr 189, Mel 88
- Type: Open cluster
- Magnitude: 3.7
- Constellation: Cancer
- Visible from: Northern Hemisphere
- Best time to see: September-May
To find the Beehive star cluster, you should remember that it climbs higher in the evening sky throughout the northern winter and early spring, disappears in the Sun’s glare in June-August, and returns to the morning sky in September.
10. Omega Centauri
- Other names: NGC 5139, C 80, Mel 118
- Type: Globular cluster
- Magnitude: 3.9
- Constellation: Centaurus
- Visible from: Southern Hemisphere
- Best time to see: April-June
Omega Centauri is the largest and brightest globular cluster in the Milky Way galaxy, one of very few Milky Way’s globular star clusters visible to the naked eye. It looks like a faint and fuzzy star, best observable in the southern latitudes, but also visible in the evening sky from the Northern Hemisphere.
11. 47 Tucanae
- Other names: NGC 104, C 106, Mel 1
- Type: Globular cluster
- Magnitude: 4.0
- Constellation: Tucana
- Visible from: Southern Hemisphere
- Best time to see: September-November
The second brightest globular star cluster 47 Tucanae has an extremely dense core that you can see via binoculars. To the naked eye, it appears as a slightly blurred star, similar to the head of a tailless comet. Even its discoverer initially mistook it for a comet!
12. Butterfly Cluster
- Other names: M6, NGC 6405, Cr 341, Mel 178
- Type: Open cluster
- Magnitude: 4.2
- Constellation: Scorpius
- Visible from: Southern Hemisphere
- Best time to see: April-August
The neighbor of the above-mentioned Ptolemy Cluster, the Butterfly Cluster is a smaller group of stars that looks like a swarm of fireflies through binoculars. To the naked eye, this cluster appears like a nebula without stars.
13. Jewel Box Cluster
- Other names: NGC 4755, C 94, Cr 264, Mel 114
- Type: Open cluster
- Magnitude: 4.2
- Constellation: Crux
- Visible from: Southern Hemisphere
- Best time to see: March-May
The brilliant Jewel Box star cluster has about a dozen stars in various shades of blue, yellow, and orange; to the naked eye, it appears as a fuzzy star. You can easily recognize the cluster by its A-shaped asterism formed by its four brightest stars.
14. Double Cluster
- Other names: NGC 869 and NGC 884
- Type: Open cluster
- Magnitude: 4.3
- Constellation: Perseus
- Visible from: Northern Hemisphere
- Best time to see: October-February
The Double Cluster contains two separate star clusters that appear as a single large hazy patch to the naked eye. The cluster is hard to see when it’s close to the horizon, so if you can’t see it yet, wait until it rises higher.
15. Little Beehive Cluster
- Other names: M41, NGC 2287, Cr 118, Mel 52
- Type: Open cluster
- Magnitude: 4.5
- Constellation: Canis Major
- Visible from: Southern Hemisphere
- Best time to see: January-February
The Little Beehive star cluster is located near Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky. You need to look for a faint object that looks fuzzy and differs from pinpoint stars.
How to find a cluster of stars in the sky?
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The easiest way to find a star cluster, as well as any other sky object, is to use an astronomical app, like Star Walk 2 – using its advanced search system with several thousand objects in the database, you can find all the bright star clusters from our list in a couple of clicks. Also, by pointing your phone at the sky, you can see its location in the real sky above you. It works without an internet connection, so you can go somewhere away from city lights and still be able to use it.
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The second way is to use websites, like SkyMap or Sky-Map.org. They don’t work offline, therefore, it's not the most convenient method for those who want to get away from city lights.
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The third way is to look for star clusters using sky landmarks such as constellations, bright stars, and asterisms. This method is hardly good for beginners, because it calls for the ability to navigate the starry sky: you need to be familiar with what the brightest constellations look like and where they are located. It is best to choose the specific bright clusters you want to find and memorize their home constellations in advance.
Frequently asked questions about star clusters
What are star clusters?
A star cluster is a large group of stars whose members are held together by mutual gravitational attraction. Not to be confused with galaxies that are also gravitationally bound groups of stars. To distinguish these space objects, keep in mind that galaxies are way more massive. A typical (globular) star cluster contains a mass of 100,000 Suns, while the Milky Way galaxy has nearly 1 trillion solar masses.
Star clusters are divided into two main types: globular and open ones. The difference between them is significant.
What is a globular cluster?
Globular clusters are old, usually spherical groups of stars that can contain from a few thousand to a million members. Among the brightest globular clusters are 47 Tucanae and Omega Centauri.
What is an open cluster?
Open clusters are young and small groups of stars; they contain hundreds or thousands of members. These star clusters tend to lose spread out over time, becoming loosely clustered. Due to this, they are more irregular in shape. You can notice this by observing the Pleiades, Hyades, or Beehive Cluster.
Is Orion’s Belt a star cluster?
The three stars of Orion’s Belt were probably all born around the same time and formed from the plasma clouds within the same sky region. Yet, Orion’s Belt is not a star cluster: it is an asterism – a prominent pattern of stars which is not considered a separate constellation.
Brightest star clusters: bottom line
Now you know at least 15 beautiful star clusters that can be seen without special equipment. On the next clear evening, go outside and try to spot some of them! Grab your phone with the Star Walk 2 app: it can save you a lot of time when searching for star clusters in the sky. Also, check our Instagram account to get inspired by the stunning photos of the star clusters from this list! And don’t forget to share this article with your fellow stargazers if you found it useful.
Not only star clusters: explore the deep sky
Bright star clusters are a good starting point, but you can see so much more! Check out our infographic on deep-sky targets perfect for beginners: there you'll find colorful photos as well as detailed maps showing how to find suggested objects in the sky.
Also, explore our compilation of articles on the best star clusters, galaxies, and nebulae. You'll find articles on individual objects with detailed observing tips, as well as comprehensive guides on the best objects to see each month.
We wish you clear skies and happy observations!
