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Rare galaxy 38 EP

IC 148

RA 25.6124° · Dec 13.9770° · openngc

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Score breakdown

· 5 badges
38 pts · Rare
Rare 50 pts → Epic
  • Galaxy +14
  • Irregular galaxy (no shape at all) +12
  • Outside our galaxy entirely +6
  • On the zodiac +3
  • Faint fuzzy (mag > 13) +3
Total score 38

12 more points to reach Epic.

Badges

  • Galaxy · +14
  • Outside our galaxy entirely · +6
  • Irregular galaxy (no shape at all) · +12
  • On the zodiac · +3
  • Faint fuzzy (mag > 13) · +3

Trivia

What it actually is

  • What it actually is. A galaxy: a gravitationally bound city of stars, gas and dark matter, turning so slowly that a single rotation takes hundreds of millions of years.
  • Irregular. An irregular galaxy — no disc, no bulge, no symmetry. Most have been pulled out of shape by a larger neighbour's gravity.

Sense of scale

  • In perspective. Further than Andromeda, the most distant thing the unaided human eye can see.
  • Scale. Home to hundreds of billions of stars — a universe unto itself, and every one of those points of light could have planets.

Find it in the sky

  • How to spot it. At magnitude 13.8 it is far too faint for the eye: this one belongs to cameras and long exposures, over in Pisces.
  • Northern sky. It rides the northern half of the sky — an easier target the further north you are.
  • Best time of year. It stands highest in the middle of the night around October — that's when to go looking.

Could we get there?

  • Verdict. Impossible with our current technology — and the next millennium of it.

Properties

constellation
Psc
dist ly
34502057.0087
dso type
G
hubble
I
mag
13.84
name
IC 148
radial velocity kms
740
redshift
0.0025
size arcmin
1.82
surface brightness
23.07

About IC 148

IC 148 is a rare galaxy. It lies about 34,502,057 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Psc and shines at apparent magnitude 13.84.

A galaxy: a gravitationally bound city of stars, gas and dark matter, turning so slowly that a single rotation takes hundreds of millions of years.

How to see it

Look for IC 148 in the constellation Psc. At apparent magnitude 13.84, it takes a larger telescope or a long-exposure image to capture.

Like any astronomical target, IC 148 is best seen from a dark site away from city lights, and when it is above the horizon depends on your latitude and the time of year. The visibility panel above works out tonight's viewing window for your saved location.

Why IC 148 is a rare galaxy

IC 148 scores 38 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the rare tier. Another 12 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 5 science badges — Galaxy, Outside our galaxy entirely, Irregular galaxy (no shape at all), On the zodiac and Faint fuzzy (mag > 13) — each earned for a real, measurable property of the object. Rarity on Spacedle is never random: the more remarkable an object's astrophysics, the more badges it collects, the higher it scores, and the rarer it ranks.