The open star cluster M47 (NGC 2422; mag 4.4) in Puppis will be well placed in the evening sky in coming weeks. On 15 January it will reach its highest point in the sky at around midnight local time, and on subsequent evenings it will culminate four minutes earlier each day.
From Cambridge , it is visible between 20:33 and 02:47. It will become accessible at around 20:33, when it rises to an altitude of 18° above your south-eastern horizon. It will reach its highest point in the sky at 23:40, 33° above your southern horizon. It will become inaccessible at around 02:47 when it sinks below 18° above your south-western horizon.
At a declination of 14°28'S, it is easiest to see from the southern hemisphere; it can be seen at latitudes between 55°N and 84°S.
At magnitude 4.4, M47 is tricky to make out with the naked eye except from a dark site, but is visible through a pair of binoculars or small telescope.
The position of M47 is as follows:
| Object | Right Ascension | Declination | Constellation | Magnitude | Angular Size |
| M47 | 07h36m30s | 14°28'S | Puppis | 4.4 | 19'48" |
The coordinates above are given in J2000.0.
The sky on 15 Jan 2024
| The sky on 15 January 2024 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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33% 4 days old |
All times shown in EST.
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Source
The circumstances of this event were computed using the DE430 planetary ephemeris published by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).
This event was automatically generated by searching the ephemeris for planetary alignments which are of interest to amateur astronomers, and the text above was generated based on an estimate of your location.
Image credit
© Digitised Sky Survey (DSS); Second Palomar Observatory Sky Survey (POSS-II)