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Rare galaxy 37 EP

NGC 1068

RA 40.6696° · Dec -0.0133° · openngc

Real photograph of NGC 1068 📷 Real photo
NASA, ESA & A. van der Hoeven
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Score breakdown

· 4 badges
37 pts · Rare
Rare 50 pts → Epic
  • Galaxy +14
  • Messier object +12
  • Outside our galaxy entirely +6
  • Spiral galaxy +5
Total score 37

13 more points to reach Epic.

Badges

  • Galaxy · +14
  • Outside our galaxy entirely · +6
  • Messier object · +12
  • Spiral galaxy · +5

Trivia

Hard to believe

  • Messier object. One of the 110 showpieces of the Messier list — catalogued as M77.

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 9.3 you'll want a small backyard telescope, over in Cetus.
  • Seen from everywhere. It sits almost on the celestial equator, so it can be seen from essentially anywhere on Earth.
  • Best time of year. It stands highest in the middle of the night around October — that's when to go looking.

Properties

constellation
Cet
dist ly
53219772.147
dso type
G
hubble
Sb
mag
9.29
messier
yes
messier number
077
name
NGC 1068
radial velocity kms
1140
redshift
0.0038
size arcmin
6.11
surface brightness
22.35

Nearby objects

About NGC 1068

NGC 1068 is a rare galaxy. It lies about 53,219,772.1 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Cet and shines at apparent magnitude 9.29.

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 NGC 1068 in the constellation Cet. At apparent magnitude 9.29, a small backyard telescope will bring it into view.

Like any astronomical target, NGC 1068 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 NGC 1068 is a rare galaxy

NGC 1068 scores 37 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the rare tier. Another 13 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 4 science badges — Galaxy, Outside our galaxy entirely, Messier object and Spiral galaxy — 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.