M 36 Deep sky · Open cluster in Auriga · M 36 · NGC 1960
Pinwheel Cluster
The smallest and youngest of the three open clusters in Auriga — a bright, tight knot of blue-white stars.
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- Type
- Open cluster
- Designations
- M 36 · NGC 1960
- Constellation
- Auriga
- Apparent magnitude
- 6.0
- Apparent size
- 10′
- Position (J2000)
- RA 05h 36m · Dec +34° 08′
The full Moon, about 31′ across, is 3.1 times as wide. The Sun passes 11° from it around mid June, and for about 22 days of the year it sits within 15° of the Sun, lost in its glare.
When to see it
On the night of Sat 12 Dec 2026, when it is highest around midnight, on each city’s own clock:
| From | Rises | Highest | Sets |
|---|---|---|---|
| London GMT | 14:19 | 00:11 · 73° | 10:04 |
| New York EST | 15:45 | 00:06 · 83° | 08:28 |
| Singapore GMT+8 | 19:14 | 01:17 · 57° | 07:19 |
| Sydney GMT+11 | 20:57 | 01:08 · 22° | 05:19 |
Common questions
- Can I see it from 50° north?
- Yes. It rises and sets, and at its highest it stands 74° up in the south.
- Can I see it from 35° south?
- Yes. It rises and sets, and at its highest it stands 21° up in the north.
- When is the best time of year to see it?
- Around mid December, when it stands opposite the Sun and is highest at midnight. It comes round about two hours earlier each month, so by mid March it is highest in the early evening, and in mid September not until the hours before dawn.
- Naked eye, binoculars or telescope?
- The naked eye, from a dark country sky, which shows stars to about magnitude 7.0; from a city, binoculars.
Look for
The three Auriga clusters lie in a line across the middle of the figure: M 36 in the middle, M 37 to the south-east and M 38 to the north-west.
Look for
From 50° north it climbs to 74°; from 35° north it climbs to 89°; from the equator it climbs to 56°; from 35° south it climbs to 21°.
Look for
Magnitude 6.0 against the faintest star each can show: the eye under a city sky, 4.5 (1.5 short); the eye under a dark country sky, 7.0 (1.0 to spare); 50 mm binoculars under that dark sky, 11.0 (5.0 to spare); a 100 mm telescope there, 12.5 (6.5 to spare). Through 7×50 binoculars, whose field is about 7.1° across, it spans 2% of the field’s width; through a 100 mm telescope at 50×, a field about 1° across, it spans 17% of the field’s width.