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Rare galaxy 38 EP

IC 4926

RA 300.0506° · Dec -38.5786° · openngc

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Score breakdown

· 6 badges
38 pts · Rare
Rare 50 pts → Epic
  • Galaxy +14
  • Toward the galactic centre +8
  • Outside our galaxy entirely +6
  • Elliptical galaxy +4
  • 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
  • Elliptical galaxy · +4
  • Toward the galactic centre · +8
  • 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.
  • Elliptical. An elliptical galaxy: a smooth swarm of stars on randomly tilted orbits, with almost no cold gas left to build anything new.

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 13.9 it is far too faint for the eye: this one belongs to cameras and long exposures, over in Sagittarius.
  • Southern sky. It rides the southern half of the sky — an easier target the further south you are.
  • Best time of year. It stands highest in the middle of the night around July — that's when to go looking.

Could we get there?

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

Properties

constellation
Sgr
dist ly
256167296.9563
dso type
G
hubble
E
mag
13.95
name
IC 4926
radial velocity kms
5447
redshift
0.0183
size arcmin
1.29
surface brightness
23.37

About IC 4926

IC 4926 is a rare galaxy. It lies about 256,167,297 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Sgr and shines at apparent magnitude 13.95.

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 4926 in the constellation Sgr. At apparent magnitude 13.95, it takes a larger telescope or a long-exposure image to capture.

Like any astronomical target, IC 4926 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 4926 is a rare galaxy

IC 4926 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 6 science badges — Galaxy, Outside our galaxy entirely, Elliptical galaxy, Toward the galactic centre, 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.