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Uncommon nebula 30 EP

NGC 2183

RA 92.6955° · Dec -6.2118° · openngc

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Score breakdown

· 4 badges
30 pts · Uncommon
Uncommon 34 pts → Rare
  • Star-forming region +14
  • Nebula +8
  • Big on the sky +5
  • Faint fuzzy (mag > 13) +3
Total score 30

4 more points to reach Rare.

Badges

  • Nebula · +8
  • Star-forming region · +14
  • Big on the sky · +5
  • Faint fuzzy (mag > 13) · +3

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 15.2 it is far too faint for the eye: this one belongs to cameras and long exposures, over in Monoceros.
  • 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 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
Mon
dso type
HII
mag
15.15
name
NGC 2183
radial velocity kms
24
redshift
0.0001
size arcmin
12

About NGC 2183

NGC 2183 is an uncommon nebula. It sits in the constellation Mon and shines at apparent magnitude 15.15.

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 2183 in the constellation Mon. At apparent magnitude 15.15, it takes a larger telescope or a long-exposure image to capture.

Like any astronomical target, NGC 2183 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 2183 is an uncommon nebula

NGC 2183 scores 30 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the uncommon tier. Another 4 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 4 science badges — Nebula, Star-forming region, Big on the sky 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.