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Timezone: Europe/London
Sunrise: 5:06 
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In Evidence

New Comet C/2025 J1 (Borisov) Discovered in May 2025
Detailed information about the discovery of Comet C/2025 J1 (Borisov) and pointers to useful resources to track and observe it. Read more...

Other deep sky objects in Scorpius
All Constellations »  Scorpius »  Deep Sky Objects » 

NGC 6242 - Open Cluster in Scorpius

Below the horizon.  Never rises today
Alt: -40.10°   Az: 106.10°   Direction: East-South-East

NGC 6242 is a Open Cluster in the Scorpius constellation. NGC 6242 is situated south of the celestial equator and, as such, it is more easily visible from the southern hemisphere. Given its visual magnitude of 6.4, NGC 6242 is easily visible with the help of a small binocular.

The image below is a photograph of NGC 6242 from the Digitized Sky Survey 2 (DSS2 - see the credits section) taken in the red channel. The area of sky represented in the image is 0.5000x0.5000 degrees (30.00x30.00 arcmins).

Image of NGC 6242 - Open Cluster in Scorpius star
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DSS2 image of NGC 6242 in the Red band. The green region on the image is a representation of the major (6.6 arcmin) and minor (6.6 arcmin) axes of the object's apparent size.

Celestial Coordinates

Apparent

16h 57m 17s
-39° 29’ 58”
16h 49m 01s
09h 46m 19s

J2000

16h 55m 32s
-39° 27’ 38”

Finder Chart

The simplified sky charts below show the position of NGC 6242 in the sky. The first chart has a field of view of 60° while the second one has a field of view of 10°.

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Finder chart for NGC 6242 - Open Cluster in Scorpius.

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Finder chart for NGC 6242 - Open Cluster in Scorpius.

Photometric Information

The following table lists the magnitude of NGC 6242 in different bands of the electomagnetic spectrum (when available), from the B band (445nm wavelength, corresponding to the Blue color), to the V band ( 551nm wavelength, corresponding to Green/Yellow color), to the J, H, K bands (corresponding to 1220nm, 1630nm, 2190nm wavelengths respectively, which are colors not visible to the human eye).

7.09
6.4

For more information about photometry in astronomy, check the photometric system article on Wikipedia.

Apparent Size

The following table reports NGC 6242 apparent angular size. The green area displayed on top of the DSS2 image of NGC 6242 is a visual representation of it.
6.6 arcmin
6.6 arcmin

Rise and Set Times

Location: Greenwich, UK
Latitude: 51° 28’ 47” N
Longitude: 0° 00’ 00” E
Timezone: Europe/London

NGC 6242 - Open Cluster in Scorpius is currently not visible from Greenwich, UK