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Rare galaxy 40 EP

NGC 4303

RA 185.4787° · Dec 4.4736° · openngc

Real photograph of NGC 4303 📷 Real photo
ESA/Hubble & NASA
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Score breakdown

· 5 badges
40 pts · Rare
Rare 50 pts → Epic
  • Galaxy +14
  • Messier object +12
  • Outside our galaxy entirely +6
  • Spiral galaxy +5
  • On the zodiac +3
Total score 40

10 more points to reach Epic.

Badges

  • Galaxy · +14
  • Outside our galaxy entirely · +6
  • Messier object · +12
  • Spiral galaxy · +5
  • On the zodiac · +3

Trivia

Hard to believe

  • Messier object. One of the 110 showpieces of the Messier list — catalogued as M61.

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

Properties

constellation
Vir
dist ly
73054962.8159
dso type
G
hubble
Sbc
mag
10.25
messier
yes
messier number
061
name
NGC 4303
radial velocity kms
1564
redshift
0.0052
size arcmin
6.89
surface brightness
23.05

About NGC 4303

NGC 4303 is a rare galaxy. It lies about 73,054,962.8 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Vir and shines at apparent magnitude 10.25.

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 4303 in the constellation Vir. At apparent magnitude 10.25, a small backyard telescope will bring it into view.

Like any astronomical target, NGC 4303 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 4303 is a rare galaxy

NGC 4303 scores 40 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the rare tier. Another 10 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 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.