Poor Vulpecula, the Fox. An inconspicuous constellation buried in the summer Milky Way, the sly celestial fox tries hard not to be seen - and largely succeeds. Vulpecula contains no stars brighter than 4th magnitude. Yet Vulpecula is home to an attractive group of stars first clearly identified over a thousand years ago. The mottled patch of starlight became known as al-Sufi's cluster, in honor of Abd al-Rahman al-Sufi, a Persian astronomer who first noted it in AD 964. Almost 700 years later, the Italian astronomer Giovanni Hodierna independently cataloged the object. Seattle, Washington amateur Dalmero Brocchi prepared a detailed chart of the intriguing field in the 1920s for the American Association of Variable Star Observers - hence the label Brocchi's Cluster on star atlases. The cluster graduated to professional status as Collinder 399 (Cr 399) thanks to a comprehensive survey of open clusters that Swedish astronomer Per Collinder compiled in 1931. Today, stargazers know it simply as the Coathanger.
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