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Uncommon galaxy 33 EP

NGC 2389

RA 112.2694° · Dec 33.8610° · openngc

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Score breakdown

· 4 badges
33 pts · Uncommon
Uncommon 34 pts → Rare
  • Galaxy +14
  • Barred spiral galaxy +10
  • Outside our galaxy entirely +6
  • On the zodiac +3
Total score 33

1 more point to reach Rare.

Badges

  • Galaxy · +14
  • Outside our galaxy entirely · +6
  • Barred spiral galaxy · +10
  • On the zodiac · +3

Trivia

What makes it special

  • Barred spiral. A barred spiral — a straight bar of stars driving right through the nucleus, feeding gas inwards. Our own Milky Way is one of these.

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.

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 12.9 it is far too faint for the eye: this one belongs to cameras and long exposures, over in Gemini.
  • 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 January — that's when to go looking.

Could we get there?

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

Properties

constellation
Gem
dist ly
183950440.7883
dso type
G
hubble
SABc
mag
12.92
name
NGC 2389
radial velocity kms
3922
redshift
0.0132
size arcmin
1.56
surface brightness
22.63

About NGC 2389

NGC 2389 is an uncommon galaxy. It lies about 183,950,440.8 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Gem and shines at apparent magnitude 12.92.

A barred spiral — a straight bar of stars driving right through the nucleus, feeding gas inwards. Our own Milky Way is one of these.

How to see it

Look for NGC 2389 in the constellation Gem. At apparent magnitude 12.92, it takes a larger telescope or a long-exposure image to capture.

Like any astronomical target, NGC 2389 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 2389 is an uncommon galaxy

NGC 2389 scores 33 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the uncommon tier. Another 1 point would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 4 science badges — Galaxy, Outside our galaxy entirely, Barred spiral galaxy and On the zodiac — 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.