See a trio of spectacular star clusters brighten the summer sky in August 2025

Warm mid-August summer nights offer prime conditions for spotting three magnificent star clusters visible to northern-hemisphere skywatchers in the coming months.

Star clusters are gravitationally bound groups of stars that formed from the same interstellar cloud. These stellar hives range in size from a dozen to hundreds of members and are categorized as open clusters or globular clusters.

Open star clusters typically reside in the dense spiral arms of the Milky Way, where the gravity of passing stars can tug at their outermost members, pulling them apart over the course of millions of years.In contrast, globular clusters are usually found in the galactic halo, above and below the disk. These tightly bound, spherical swarms often contain hundreds of thousands of stellar bodies and play