File:Messier_29.jpg · Wikimedia Commons · See Wikimedia Commons
Messier 29
Sign in to saveAlso known as M29, New General Catalogue 6913
open cluster in the constellation Cygnus
Key facts
- Right ascension
- 20 23 56
- Declination
- +38 ° 31 ′ 24 ″
- Distance
- 5,240 ly (1,608 pc )
- Apparent dimensions v
- 7.0′
- Mass
- 580–1,090 M ☉
- Estimated age
- 13.2 Myr
- Other designations
- M29, NGC 6913, Cr 422, OCl 168
- Constellation
- Cygnus
via Wikipedia infobox
~3 min read
Encyclopedic overview
Messier 29 or M29, also known as NGC 6913 or the Cooling Tower Cluster, is a quite small, bright open cluster of stars just south of the central bright star Gamma Cygni of a northerly zone of the sky, Cygnus. It was discovered by Charles Messier in 1764, and can be seen from Earth by using binoculars.
M29 is well within the several degrees of the arms and bulge of the Milky Way. It is at least many hundreds of light years short of the yardstick distance to the Galactic Center, as is between 4,000 and 7,200 light years away. A 1998 popular work gives a value within this range. Data from Gaia EDR3 gives a parallactic distance of about 5,240 light years. The uncertainty is due to poorly known absorption of the cluster's light. Its extinction greatly is from faint surrounding nebulosity and other foreground interstellar matter of this cross-section of the spiral arms (see Orion–Cygnus Arm, which is our local arm).
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Messier 29” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.