About IC 4955
IC 4955 is a trash nebula. It sits in the constellation Vul and shines at apparent magnitude 12.98.
A nebula: a cloud of interstellar gas and dust, thinner than the best vacuum ever made in a laboratory yet spanning light-years.
Trash nebula 14 EP
IC 4955
RA 301.2190° · Dec 29.1926° · openngc
Score breakdown
· 2 badgesTrash 15 pts → Common
- Nebula +8
- Diffuse nebula +6
Total score 14
1 more point to reach Common.
Badges
- Nebula · +8
- Diffuse nebula · +6
Trivia
What it actually is
- What it actually is. A nebula: a cloud of interstellar gas and dust, thinner than the best vacuum ever made in a laboratory yet spanning light-years.
Find it in the sky
- How to spot it. At magnitude 13 it is far too faint for the eye: this one belongs to cameras and long exposures, over in Vulpecula.
- 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 July — that's when to go looking.
Its true colour
- Its true colour. Nebular colours are chemistry made visible — red for hydrogen, teal for oxygen, blue where starlight is merely scattered.
How we came to know it
- The Index Catalogue. The IC was the 1895 and 1908 supplement to the NGC — the first catalogue in history to be filled largely with objects found on photographic plates rather than by eye.
Properties
- constellation
- Vul
- dso type
- Neb
- mag
- 12.98
- name
- IC 4955
- size arcmin
- 2.09
How to see it
Look for IC 4955 in the constellation Vul. At apparent magnitude 12.98, it takes a larger telescope or a long-exposure image to capture.
Like any astronomical target, IC 4955 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 4955 is a trash nebula
IC 4955 scores 14 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the trash tier. Another 1 point would lift it into a rarer tier.
That score comes from 2 science badges — Nebula and Diffuse nebula — 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.