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Rare galaxy 36 EP

IC 2796 NED02

RA 171.0351° · Dec 9.3429° · openngc

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Score breakdown

· 5 badges
36 pts · Rare
Rare 50 pts → Epic
  • Galaxy +14
  • Ghostly low surface brightness +10
  • Outside our galaxy entirely +6
  • On the zodiac +3
  • Faint fuzzy (mag > 13) +3
Total score 36

14 more points to reach Epic.

Badges

  • Galaxy · +14
  • Outside our galaxy entirely · +6
  • On the zodiac · +3
  • Ghostly low surface brightness · +10
  • 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.

Sense of scale

  • In perspective. Deep in the extragalactic distance — further than the entire Virgo Cluster of galaxies.
  • 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 18.2 it is far too faint for the eye: this one belongs to cameras and long exposures, over in Leo.
  • Seen from everywhere. It sits almost on the celestial equator, so it can be seen from essentially anywhere on Earth.
  • Best time of year. It stands highest in the middle of the night around March — that's when to go looking.

Could we get there?

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

Getting there

  • Aboard Voyager 1. ≈ 18.9 trillion years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

constellation
Leo
dist ly
1075849567.1286
dso type
G
mag
18.19
name
IC 2796 NED02
radial velocity kms
22203
redshift
0.077
size arcmin
0.37
surface brightness
24.79

About IC 2796 NED02

IC 2796 NED02 is a rare galaxy. It lies about 1.08×10^9 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Leo and shines at apparent magnitude 18.19.

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 2796 NED02 in the constellation Leo. At apparent magnitude 18.19, it takes a larger telescope or a long-exposure image to capture.

Like any astronomical target, IC 2796 NED02 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 2796 NED02 is a rare galaxy

IC 2796 NED02 scores 36 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the rare tier. Another 14 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 5 science badges — Galaxy, Outside our galaxy entirely, On the zodiac, Ghostly low surface brightness 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.