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Rare galaxy 41 EP

NGC 3992

RA 179.3999° · Dec 53.3745° · openngc

Real photograph of NGC 3992 📷 Real photo
KPNO/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/George Hatfield and Flynn Haase (CC BY 4.0)
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Score breakdown

· 5 badges
41 pts · Rare
Rare 50 pts → Epic
  • Galaxy +14
  • Messier object +12
  • Outside our galaxy entirely +6
  • Spiral galaxy +5
  • Never sets (northern circumpolar) +4
Total score 41

9 more points to reach Epic.

Badges

  • Galaxy · +14
  • Outside our galaxy entirely · +6
  • Messier object · +12
  • Spiral galaxy · +5
  • Never sets (northern circumpolar) · +4

Trivia

Hard to believe

  • Messier object. One of the 110 showpieces of the Messier list — catalogued as M109.

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 9.9 you'll want a small backyard telescope, over in Ursa Major.
  • 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 March — that's when to go looking.

Properties

constellation
UMa
dist ly
48833680.6892
dso type
G
hubble
Sbc
mag
9.88
messier
yes
messier number
109
name
NGC 3992
radial velocity kms
1046
redshift
0.0035
size arcmin
8.07
surface brightness
23.45

About NGC 3992

NGC 3992 is a rare galaxy. It lies about 48,833,680.7 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation UMa and shines at apparent magnitude 9.88.

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 3992 in the constellation UMa. At apparent magnitude 9.88, a small backyard telescope will bring it into view.

Like any astronomical target, NGC 3992 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 3992 is a rare galaxy

NGC 3992 scores 41 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the rare tier. Another 9 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 5 science badges — Galaxy, Outside our galaxy entirely, Messier object, Spiral 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.