IC 2602

Open Cluster IC 2602 (= Lacaille II.9 = Melotte 102 = Collinder 229), type 'c', in Carina

Theta Carinae cluster, The Southern Pleiades

[i2602.jpg]
Right Ascension 10 : 43.2 (h:m)
Declination -64 : 24 (deg:m)
Distance 0.479 (kly)
Visual Brightness 1.9 (mag)
Apparent Dimension 50 (arc min)

Discovered by Abbe Lacaille in 1752.

The splendid open cluster IC 2602 was discovered by Abbe Lacaille on March 3, 1752 from South Africa, and cataloged as Lacaille II.9. Already Abbe Lacaille has compared this cluster with the Pleiades, and it is still known under the common name "Southern Pleiades."

The distance of IC 2602 has been slightly adjusted from the data of the Hipparcos satellite; according to these data, the cluster is at 479 light years (the older value had been 489 light years).

The image in this page was obtained by Till Credner and Sven Kohle of the University of Bonn, Germany when evaluating their Constellations Crux, Musca, and Carina photography. It was cropped and magnified from a wide-field photograph (27x39 deg) obtained on June 8, 1994, 23:54 LT by Sven Kohle on Cerro Tololo Observatory, Chile with a 50mm f/4.0 lens on Scotchchrome 400 film.

In the Astronomical League's Southern Sky Binocular Club list.

  • Jean-Claude Mermilliod's WEBDA cluster page for IC 2602
  • SIMBAD Data of IC 2602
  • Publications on IC 2602 (NASA ADS)
  • Observing Reports for IC 2602 (IAAC Netastrocatalog)
  • NGC Online data for IC 2602


    Hartmut Frommert
    Christine Kronberg
    [contact]

    [SEDS] [MAA] [Home] [Non-Messier Indexes]

    Last Modification: June 15, 2006