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Uncommon galaxy 32 EP

IC 4662

RA 266.7870° · Dec -64.6418° · openngc

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Score breakdown

· 3 badges
32 pts · Uncommon
Uncommon 34 pts → Rare
  • Galaxy +14
  • Irregular galaxy (no shape at all) +12
  • Outside our galaxy entirely +6
Total score 32

2 more points to reach Rare.

Badges

  • Galaxy · +14
  • Outside our galaxy entirely · +6
  • Irregular galaxy (no shape at all) · +12

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 11.1 you'll want a small backyard telescope, over in Pavo.
  • Southern sky only. So far south it never rises for most of the northern hemisphere. To see it you'd have to travel to Chile, South Africa or Australia.
  • Best time of year. It stands highest in the middle of the night around June — that's when to go looking.

Could we get there?

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

Properties

constellation
Pav
dist ly
14080191.6861
dso type
G
hubble
IB
mag
11.1
name
IC 4662
radial velocity kms
302
redshift
0.001
size arcmin
2.09
surface brightness
21.34

About IC 4662

IC 4662 is an uncommon galaxy. It lies about 14,080,191.7 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Pav and shines at apparent magnitude 11.1.

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 4662 in the constellation Pav. At apparent magnitude 11.1, a small backyard telescope will bring it into view.

Like any astronomical target, IC 4662 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 4662 is an uncommon galaxy

IC 4662 scores 32 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the uncommon tier. Another 2 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 3 science badges — Galaxy, Outside our galaxy entirely and Irregular galaxy (no shape at all) — 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.