Caldwell 58

Caldwell 58 is also called Caroline’s Cluster in honor of astronomer Caroline Herschel.

Distance

3,700 light-years

Apparent Magnitude

7.2

constellation

Canis Major

object type

Open Cluster

Caldwell 58
Caldwell 58 is an open cluster — a group of stars loosely bound together by gravity. Astronomers used Hubble to study white dwarfs in C58 and better understand the age of our galaxy.
NASA, ESA, and T. von Hippel (Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University); Processing: Gladys Kober (NASA/Catholic University of America)

Caldwell 58, also known as NGC 2360 or Caroline’s Cluster, was discovered by and named after the German astronomer Caroline Herschel in 1783. The younger sister of famed astronomer William Herschel, Caroline was the first woman to win the prestigious Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society. She earned this award for her work verifying her brother’s astronomical observations and compiling a catalog of nebulae to aid other astronomers.

Caldwell 58 (NGC 2360)
Taken by the Digitized Sky Survey (DSS), the ground-based image of Caldwell 58 (NGC 2360) in the lower left shows the location of Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) observation of stars in the cluster. ACS uses two imaging chips that are close but not immediately next to each other, leaving a small gap in the full image.
Ground-based image: Digitized Sky Survey; Hubble image: NASA, ESA, and T. von Hippel (Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University); Processing: Gladys Kober (NASA/Catholic University of America)

Caldwell 58 is an open cluster — a group of stars loosely bound together by gravity. It is located in the constellation Canis Major, roughly 3,700 light-years from Earth. The cluster has an apparent magnitude of 7.2 and can be spotted with a pair of binoculars in dark, moonless skies. Caldwell 58 is most easily observed during the Northern Hemisphere’s winter and the Southern Hemisphere’s summer.

Astronomers used Hubble to study white dwarfs in Caldwell 58 and better understand the age of our galaxy. After a Sun-like star has exhausted its supply of nuclear fuel and ejected its outer layers of gas, what is left behind is the hot core of the star — a white dwarf. These objects cool over a period of billions of years and are some of the oldest stars in our galaxy. Some white dwarfs pulse regularly as they cool. The time between these pulsations changes over the white dwarf’s lifetime, so the time between pulses can be used to estimate how quickly the white dwarf is cooling, and thus how long it has been cooling. This information is useful to astronomers because it means pulsating white dwarfs can be used as chronometers, or “clocks,” that constrain the age of our galaxy. These observations of Caldwell 58 were made with Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys to help astronomers calibrate white-dwarf chronometers.

Star chart for Caldwell 58
This star chart for Caldwell 58 represents the view from mid-northern latitudes for the given month and time.
Image courtesy of Stellarium
Shows the location of C58 from mid-southern latitudes in the night sky, near the constellation Canis Major at 10pm in February.
This star chart for Caldwell 58 represents the view from mid-southern latitudes for the given month and time.
Image courtesy of Stellarium

Glossary

Apparent Magnitude - The brightness of an astronomical object as seen from Earth, influenced by the object's distance from Earth, its absolute magnitude, and even gas and dust that lie between the object and Earth.

Nebula - An interstellar cloud of dust and gas; either a location where new stars are being forged or a cloud of material ejected into space by a dying star.

Open Cluster - A group of stars loosely bound by gravity, destined to be short lived because the gravitational interactions between members are weak enough that stars can be drawn away from the cluster by stronger gravitational forces.

White Dwarf - The core of a dead Sun-like star whose outer layers have been expelled into space.

Explore Hubble's Caldwell Catalog

The following pages contain some of Hubble’s best images of Caldwell objects.

Stars with four diffraction spikes dot the scene against a black backdrop.

Caldwell 1

Also known as NGC 188, this group of stars formed from a large cloud of gas making the stars roughly…

Red cloud of dust with a bright white star in the center of it. Lots of reddish and orangish stars in the background.

Caldwell 2

This shell of gas is expanding outward, away from the dying star within.

Large grouping of bright white, blue and red stars. Lightly colored blue dust surrounds the stars.

Caldwell 3

This barred spiral galaxy was first spotted by British astronomer William Herschel in April 1793 in the constellation Draco.