RA 177.9484° · Dec 48.6831° · openngc
14 more points to reach Epic.
Miniature Spiral is a rare galaxy. It lies about 45,928,244.3 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation UMa and shines at apparent magnitude 12.48.
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.
Look for Miniature Spiral in the constellation UMa. At apparent magnitude 12.48, it takes a larger telescope or a long-exposure image to capture.
Like any astronomical target, Miniature Spiral 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.
Miniature Spiral scores 36 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the rare tier. Another 14 points would lift it into a rarer tier.
That score comes from 5 science badges — Galaxy, Outside our galaxy entirely, Has a proper name, Elliptical galaxy and Never sets (northern circumpolar) — 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.