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Rare galaxy 35 EP

IC 4182

RA 196.4564° · Dec 37.6049° · openngc

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Score breakdown

· 4 badges
35 pts · Rare
Rare 50 pts → Epic
  • Galaxy +14
  • Ghostly low surface brightness +10
  • Outside our galaxy entirely +6
  • Spiral galaxy +5
Total score 35

15 more points to reach Epic.

Badges

  • Galaxy · +14
  • Outside our galaxy entirely · +6
  • Spiral galaxy · +5
  • Ghostly low surface brightness · +10

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.
  • Spiral. A spiral galaxy. Those arms are not solid structures but traffic jams — density waves that stars drift into and out of as they orbit.

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 11.6 you'll want a small backyard telescope, over in Canes Venatici.
  • 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
CVn
dist ly
15099888.1078
dso type
G
hubble
Sm
mag
11.61
name
IC 4182
radial velocity kms
324
redshift
0.0011
size arcmin
6.01
surface brightness
25.09

About IC 4182

IC 4182 is a rare galaxy. It lies about 15,099,888.1 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation CVn and shines at apparent magnitude 11.61.

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 4182 in the constellation CVn. At apparent magnitude 11.61, a small backyard telescope will bring it into view.

Like any astronomical target, IC 4182 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 4182 is a rare galaxy

IC 4182 scores 35 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the rare tier. Another 15 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 4 science badges — Galaxy, Outside our galaxy entirely, Spiral galaxy and Ghostly low surface brightness — 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.