🌟 It Looks Like a Coathanger
This cluster forms a distinct shape that resembles an upside-down coathanger, with a straight bar of stars and a hook above—making it one of the sky’s most recognizable and whimsical asterisms.

🌟 Perfect for Binoculars
Brocchi’s Cluster is too large for some telescopes but ideal for binoculars or wide-field spotting scopes, where its shape stands out sharply against the Milky Way background.

🌟 Nestled in the Summer Milky Way
Located in Vulpecula, just south of Albireo in Cygnus, it’s beautifully placed in the heart of the summer Milky Way, surrounded by rich star fields and other deep-sky objects.

🌟 A Curious Optical Illusion
Once thought to be a true open cluster, it’s now known to be a chance alignment of unrelated stars—but its appearance and charm remain unforgettable.

🌟 Easy to Find and Fun to Share
Its distinct shape and position near bright stars make it an excellent target for beginners, and a fun surprise to show friends during a star party or casual observing night.

🌟 A Simple, Joyful Target
Brocchi’s Cluster is not about deep astrophysics—it’s about pure visual delight and appreciating the accidental art in the night sky.

Find the Summer Triangle made up of Vega, Altair and Deneb. Also find Albireo, the tip of the beak of Cygnus the Swan. Focus on Altair and Albireo.

Find the constellation Sagitta, halfway between Altair and Albireo.

Using a binocular, finder or a very low-powered eyepiece, hop just 4° from Alpha Sagittae to Brocchi's cluster in the direction of 1 Vulpeculae. Explore!

✅ Use binoculars for the best view.
The Coathanger is large—about 1.5 degrees across—so binoculars (7×50 or 10×50) provide the ideal magnification and field of view to appreciate its distinctive shape.

✅ Avoid telescopes with high magnification.
Most telescopes with standard eyepieces zoom in too much, making it hard to see the whole shape. Use a wide-field, low-power eyepiece or better yet, stick with binoculars.

✅ Observe from a dark sky site for best contrast.
While the stars are relatively bright, a dark sky improves the background contrast and helps the Coathanger pattern stand out more clearly.

✅ Scan slowly to spot the pattern.
If you’re using binoculars, sweep the area gently and allow your eyes time to pick out the distinct hanger shape—it’s easy to overlook if you rush.

✅ Try it during summer and early fall evenings.
The Coathanger is best viewed from July through September, when Vulpecula is high in the evening sky, near the rich star fields of the Milky Way.

✅ Share it with others—it’s fun and unexpected.
The Coathanger’s obvious shape makes it a great object to show friends and family, even those new to stargazing. It’s simple, charming, and easy to recognize.

❗️ Naked Eye
Brocchi’s Cluster, also known as the Coathanger, is barely visible to the naked eye under dark skies as a faint, elongated patch of light in the small constellation Vulpecula, but its distinctive shape is not apparent without magnification.

✅ Binoculars
Through binoculars, it comes to life as a striking arrangement of stars forming an unmistakable upside-down coathanger, with a straight line of six stars and a curved hook above—making it one of the most recognizable and charming asterisms in the sky.

✅ Small Telescope
In a small telescope with a wide field of view, the pattern remains easily visible and sharp, though the cluster starts to lose some of its cohesion as fainter background stars fill in around it.

✅ Medium Telescope
A medium telescope further increases star density, making the familiar shape more difficult to isolate, and at higher magnification, the “coathanger” effect largely disappears as individual stars dominate the view.

⚠️ Large Telescope
In a large telescope, the field becomes too narrow to appreciate the asterism’s full structure, and Brocchi’s Cluster loses its identity as a distinctive pattern, serving instead as a pleasant but unremarkable star field unless zoomed out to view it in context.

🟣 In Bortle 1–2 skies, the Coathanger is a beautiful and unmistakable formation suspended in a dense, star-filled region of the Milky Way. The bright stars that form the “bar” and “hook” shine sharply, and dozens of fainter background stars add richness and context to the scene. The surrounding sky is so filled with stars that the asterism seems naturally embedded in a flowing river of starlight. Its shape pops with clarity, and it feels like a tiny constellation unto itself.

🔵 In Bortle 3–4 skies, Brocchi’s Cluster still stands out clearly. The main stars remain prominent, and the coat hanger shape is easily recognizable. However, the Milky Way background begins to fade, and fewer fainter stars are visible. While the asterism still looks crisp and well-defined, it starts to feel more isolated from the broader star field and loses some of its natural context.

🟢 In Bortle 5–6 skies, the Coathanger retains its overall shape, but the surrounding sky appears noticeably dimmer. The brightest stars remain visible, but the field feels emptier, and the illusion of the “hook” may seem less obvious without the visual support of fainter stars around it. The asterism still holds visual interest but begins to look more like a disconnected pattern in an increasingly sparse sky.

🟡 In Bortle 7+ skies, Brocchi’s Cluster is greatly reduced in visual impact. The basic shape is still traceable, especially if you know where to look, but many of the background and supporting stars are lost to skyglow. The brighter “bar” of the hanger remains, but the curved portion may become faint or incomplete. The cluster loses its charm and begins to feel like a few random stars in a bright, washed-out sky.