NGC 2362 (Open Cluster)
A small, very young open cluster in Canis Major, gathered round the bright multiple star Tau Canis Majoris, about 4,000 light-years away. At about 7 million years it is one of the youngest clusters on this site.
Open cluster in Canis Major. Magnitude 6.2.
Can you see it from Guyana?
From Georgetown (6.8° N) it climbs to 58° above the southern horizon at its highest; from Lethem (3.4° N), to 62° above the southern horizon. It is highest at midnight on the night of 7 Jan, in the middle of its season. The page works out tonight's rise, highest point and set for both towns in Guyana time (UTC-4), and where the Moon is.
What you'll see
- Your eyes: Not visible to the eye. It lies 2.7° north-east of Wezen.
- 10x50 binoculars: A small hazy knot with a few stars resolved.
- A small telescope (80 to 100 mm): A tight knot of faint stars round the bright Tau Canis Majoris, 2.7° from Wezen.
- A camera: Tiny on camera: it needs 2,000 mm or more of focal length on a tracking mount.
How big, how bright, how far
- Size on the sky: 7.2′, 23% of the Moon's width (the Moon is about 31′ wide).
- Brightness: magnitude 6.2. Fainter than the faintest stars in Georgetown (4.3) and Lethem (6.0): binoculars or a telescope.
- Distance: 4,010 light-years. The light reaching your eye left it about 4,010 years ago.
- True size: 8.4 light-years across its catalogued outline; light crosses it in 8.4 years.
Apparent size from OpenNGC (Mattia Verga), CC-BY-SA-4.0.
What it is made of
- Type
- Open cluster
- Mass
- About 390 times the Sun's mass, in its stars
- Age
- About 7 million years (range 4.3 million years to 9.3 million years)
- Notable
- Its brightest member, the massive multiple star Tau Canis Majoris, shines from its centre.
What is in it, not measured:
- Stars born together: from one cloud of gas, at one time
- Hot blue stars: still shining, because the cluster is young
How we know: Distance from Gaia parallaxes of its stars: Hunt & Reffert 2024, A&A 686, A42 (Gaia DR3 cluster catalogue, VizieR J/A+A/686/A42), retrieved 2026-10-21: NGC 2362 1,228 pc; statistical 3,997-4,016 ly (16th-84th percentile); Gaia DR3 parallax zero-point systematics (about 0.02 mas) add about 2%. True size: the apparent size times the distance (apparent size: OpenNGC (Mattia Verga, CC BY-SA 4.0), commit 4e2398a2). Mass: Hunt & Reffert 2024, A&A 686, A42 (Gaia DR3 cluster catalogue, VizieR J/A+A/686/A42), retrieved 2026-10-21, NGC 2362: total 389 ± 84 Suns.
More deep-sky objects: M93 (Open Cluster) · NGC 2467 (Nebula and Cluster) · M41 (Open Cluster) · Caroline's Cluster (NGC 2360) · M47 (Open Cluster) · M46 (Open Cluster) & NGC 2438 (Planetary Nebula)