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Uncommon nebula 22 EP

NGC 1955

RA 81.5415° · Dec -67.4974° · openngc

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Score breakdown

· 2 badges
22 pts · Uncommon
Uncommon 34 pts → Rare
  • Star-forming region +14
  • Nebula +8
Total score 22

12 more points to reach Rare.

Badges

  • Nebula · +8
  • Star-forming region · +14

Trivia

What it actually is

  • What it actually is. An H II region: a cloud of hydrogen being ionised by the ultraviolet flood from hot young stars inside it. Every one is a star factory caught mid-production.

Find it in the sky

  • How to spot it. At magnitude 8.9 it is just past naked-eye reach — ordinary binoculars will pull it in, over in Dorado.
  • 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 December — that's when to go looking.

Its true colour

  • Its true colour. That signature crimson is hydrogen-alpha at 656 nanometres — electrons falling back onto protons, one photon at a time.

How we came to know it

  • The New General Catalogue. Its NGC number comes from J. L. E. Dreyer's 1888 catalogue, itself built on decades of sky sweeps by William Herschel and his sister Caroline.

Properties

constellation
Dor
dso type
HII
mag
8.87
name
NGC 1955
size arcmin
4

Nearby objects

About NGC 1955

NGC 1955 is an uncommon nebula. It sits in the constellation Dor and shines at apparent magnitude 8.87.

An H II region: a cloud of hydrogen being ionised by the ultraviolet flood from hot young stars inside it. Every one is a star factory caught mid-production.

How to see it

Look for NGC 1955 in the constellation Dor. At apparent magnitude 8.87, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, NGC 1955 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 1955 is an uncommon nebula

NGC 1955 scores 22 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the uncommon tier. Another 12 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 2 science badges — Nebula and Star-forming region — 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.