M38 Observation Details
M38 Daily Motion
M38 will be visible throughout the entire night. It will rise at 15:28, just before twilight begins, and will be at 25° when twilight starts at 18:15. It will reach its transit at 86° at 23:55, and will fade away as twilight ends at 06:46, being at 14° elevation.M38 will be visible until May, 3, when it will move too close to the Sun. During this time, its proximity to the Sun will cause it to disappear from the night sky, making it unobservable for a while.
M38 Visibility Timetable on December 21
Rise and Set Timetable
| Time | Elevation | |
| M38 rise | 15:28 | |
| Sunset | 17:08 | 14° |
| Civil sunset | 17:40 | 19° |
| Astrosession begin | 18:48 | 31° |
| Moon Rise, 57% illuminated | 23:50 | 86° |
| M38 transit | 23:55 | 86° |
| Astrosession end | 06:13 | 19° |
| Civil sunrise | 07:20 | 9° |
| Sunrise | 07:52 | 4° |
| M38 set | 08:23 | |
| Moon Set | 12:24 | -14° |
Track M38 Position Throughout the Night
← Sat, 21 December 2024 →
| Time | |
| Altitude | |
| Azimuth |
M38 - Open Cluster
M38 is an open cluster located in the constellation Auriga. It was discovered by Giovanni Battista Hodierna before 1654 and independently by Charles Messier in 1764. The cluster contains a mix of young, hot stars and older stars.
M38 spans about 25 light-years across and contains around 100 stars. The cluster is approximately 4,200 light-years away from Earth and has an apparent magnitude of 7.4, making it visible with binoculars or a small telescope.
M38 Image Gallery
DSS Blue
DSS Red
DSS Near-Infrared
DSS Composite image
The photos are taken from the Digitized Sky Survey 2 (DSS2), which was produced at the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) under NASA contract, using data from the UK Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC), the European Southern Observatory (ESO), and the National Geographic Society-Palomar Observatory Sky Survey (POSS II).
Special thanks to the National Optical Astronomy Observatory (NOAO), the Royal Observatory, Edinburgh, and the California Institute of Technology for their significant contributions.
Finder Chart for M38
| Object name | M38 |
| Field of view | |
| Limiting magnitude | |
| M38 coordinates | 5.47847, 35.85492 |
| Center coordinates | 5.47847, 35.85492 |
M38 Passage Through Night
Current position of M38
| Time | 12:02 |
| Latitude | 39.9625 |
| Longitude | -83.0061 |
| M38 elevation | -14° |
| M38 Azimuth | -1° |
Annual motion of M38
| Date | Sun, 22 December 2024 |
| Twighlight start | 18:44 |
| Twighlight end | 06:07 |
| Twighlight duration | 11h 23m |
| Rise | 15:24 |
| Set | 08:19 |
| Elevation at transit | 86° |
| Transit time | 23:51 |
| Equatorial coordinate | RA: 05h 28m 42s", Dec: 35° 51' 17s |
| Magnitude | 6 |
| Constellation | Auriga |
The graph is structured with the vertical axis showing the hours of the day, ranging from 12 AM to 12 AM the next day, while the horizontal axis spans each day of the year.
The reddish shaded area indicates the periods when the M38 is above the horizon, visible to observers. The white line marks the times when the celestial object reaches its highest point in the sky each day, known as the transit.
Data Credits
The nebulae information on this page is sourced from the OpenNGC project, developed by Matteo Verga. OpenNGC provides detailed data on the NGC catalog, which is a valuable resource for exploring deep-sky objects such as nebulae.
For more details or to contribute to OpenNGC, visit the official GitHub repository: OpenNGC on GitHub.