The second closest star is the Proxima Centauri discovered by Robert Innes. It is 30 trillion km away, making the sun 250,000 times nearer. Proxima Centauri (also called Alpha Centauri C) is one of the three stars (the other two being Alpha Centauri A and Alpha Centauri B) of the triple star system, the Alpha Centauri. The Alpha Centauri is part of the constellation Centaurus and is considered the third brightest star. The three stars of the Alpha Centauri are considered as one since they are also seen as one. Alpha Centauri A and B are too close to each other without any clear distinction between them and C is not visible at all.

Alpha Centauri A is a type of yellow star while B is a yellow orange one. The Proxima Centauri, on the other hand, is a type of red dwarf star, which means that it is small in size and of low temperature. Because of this, you cannot see it with the naked eye despite its being second closest star to the Earth. You will need to use the aid of a powerful telescope to view it.

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It was discovered by Edmond Halley, who then counted it as a nebula. It has also been found in Ptolemy’s catalog of stars almost 2,000 years ago. It is now considered as a group of stars with its galactic center orbiting like a satellite, which was credited to William Herschel.

Among other star clusters, Omega Centauri is the Milky Way’s largest and brightest cluster. It can only be seen in planet earth at certain times of the year only. It is best seen in the northern hemisphere around May and in the early days of June, usually in the evening.

This certain globular star cluster is considerably older and less dense than open star clusters. It is said to contain at least 10 million sparkling and shining stars, and covers a diameter of 230 light years, making it a no ordinary star cluster. It is said to contain 5 million suns.

Black Hole Found in Omega Centauri

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The nebula is said to be 6,000 light years away from the earth. At its core lies an open cluster of stars. It is considered at least 40 times larger than the earth, and a hundred thousand times more radiant than the sun.

The color of the Omega nebula is reddish and at times pinkish. On the other hand, the brightest region is actually white. This is said to be a result of mixture of hot gas emissions and the light of the bright star in the region. Its nebula is heated by hidden young stars, which make up the infrared light appearance.

M17 is considered exceptionally juvenile-in astronomical terms. It is visible through the naked eye because of it apparent brightness. It is adjacent to the M16, which is the Eagle nebula.

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In later years, the catalogue was expanded to include data that were not directly observed by astronomers, but were discovered with the use of photography and other advanced astronomical technologies. The first major expansion of the catalogue took place in 1896, when the Index Catalogue called IC I was added to the NGC. In 1905, the IC II was also added to the original catalogue. From these two expansions, more than 5,380 objects were added to the New General Catalogue. To date, the NGC consists of about 7,840 celestial objects, including stars, planets, galaxies, nebulae, red dwarves, supernovae and even objects thought to be black holes. The catalogue is now one of the largest and most comprehensive scientific lists in existence.

The New General Catalogue, given its very wide scope, is not without errors, especially when it was first published. A major “cleaning-up operation” was done in 1973 by Sulentic and Tifft, resulting in the Revised New General Catalog (RNGC). A similar effort called the NGC2000.0 was again done in 1988 by Sinnott. These efforts did an excellent work of removing errors and making the GNC much more accurate.

NGC 4945

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The Trapezium cluster is one of the most famous multiple star systems in the night sky. Six of the stars can be observed by the amateur astronomer, granted good seeing conditions and four of its stars (the stars that form the Trapezoidal shape in points A, B, C, and D) are easily visible with a four-inch telescope. With the naked eye, they can be seen as the star in the middle of the ‘sword' of the Orion. The 3 other stars can only be seen with very large viewing instruments.

Trapezium is remarkable in that it consists of around a thousand young and very hot stars (only around a million years old) and that they are all clustered into a space of 4 light years in diameter, which, for stars, are not at all expansive, considering how that is the approximate distance between the Solar System's Sun and the Proxima Centauri which is the nearest neighboring star (and on average, Trapezium cluster stars are 1.5 light years apart from each other, making them significantly closer than the Sun-Proxima Centauri distance). Speculation has it to be a sub-component of the Orion Nebula cluster.

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