NGC 5281 (also OCL 911, Mel 120, Collinder 276 and ESO 97-SC5) is a magnitude +5.9 open cluster located 3,614 light-years away on the outer edge of the Sagittarius Arm, in the constellation Centaurus.
The cluster is very young, having an age of about 14 million years, although some estimates indicate an age of up to 40 million years. It contains several hot and massive stars of spectral type B and A. The cluster can be found 3 degrees to the south-west of beta Centauri (Hadar) in the middle of the Milky Way and deep in rich star fields. It is very small but a bright cluster; and a pair of 10x50 binoculars can locate it without difficulty, even though they often seem to appear as a blurred single star. A telescope with 150mm aperture can partially solve it, but the concentration of stars is so high that larger apertures are needed to resolve most of the stars. To the southwest is a magnitude +8 red star. The best time to observe is in the evening sky between February and July.
The cluster was discovered by French astronomer Nicolas Louis de Lacaille using a 1.27 cm (0.5 inch) refractor at the observatory on Strand Street at the Cape of Good Hope (Cape Town, South Africa) in 1751.
Right Ascension 13h 46m 35.1s, Declination -62° 55' 00"
