This one's for all you astrophotographers out there, because I doubt seriously anyone's going to ever see it through an eyepiece. I'm talking about NGC 6481, an asterism (once thought to be an open cluster) in the constellation Ophiuchus. (The image below was taken from WikiSky.)
As you can see, it's nothing more than a string of 5 unrelated stars, ranging from magnitude 14.25 (at the brightest) to 16.75 (the dimmest). Only a chance alignment along our line of sight connects them. And considering that the faintest thing I've ever managed to positively identify through my largest scope was magnitude 13, this "object" would be futility personified for me to even make the attempt to observe.
But it is nevertheless quite beautiful, and more than worthy of imaging. Here's another, with a bit of context thrown in.
I love how some fainter stars beneath NGC 6481 complete the accidental arrangement, forming an almost perfect square. By the way, I searched the internet in vain for more information about this fascinating object, but in vain. I wasn't able to find anything about the distances of its component stars, or anything else for that matter.
I did find this bit of valuable information, however:
Right Ascension: 17h 52' 48"
Declination: 4° 10' 01"
Happy hunting!
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