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Rare galaxy 38 EP

IC 3732

RA 191.2998° · Dec 10.3244° · 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. 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 16.4 it is far too faint for the eye: this one belongs to cameras and long exposures, over in Virgo.
  • 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 April — that's when to go looking.

Could we get there?

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

Properties

constellation
Vir
dist ly
106020490.97
dso type
G
hubble
I
mag
16.35
name
IC 3732
radial velocity kms
2267
redshift
0.0076
size arcmin
0.49
surface brightness
23.28

About IC 3732

IC 3732 is a rare galaxy. It lies about 106,020,491 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Vir and shines at apparent magnitude 16.35.

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 3732 in the constellation Vir. At apparent magnitude 16.35, it takes a larger telescope or a long-exposure image to capture.

Like any astronomical target, IC 3732 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 3732 is a rare galaxy

IC 3732 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.