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Rare galaxy 38 EP

NGC 4382

RA 186.3505° · Dec 18.1915° · openngc

Real photograph of NGC 4382 📷 Real photo
ESA/Hubble & NASA, R. O'Connell (CC BY 4.0)
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Score breakdown

· 4 badges
38 pts · Rare
Rare 50 pts → Epic
  • Galaxy +14
  • Messier object +12
  • Outside our galaxy entirely +6
  • Lenticular galaxy (a disc with no arms) +6
Total score 38

12 more points to reach Epic.

Badges

  • Galaxy · +14
  • Outside our galaxy entirely · +6
  • Messier object · +12
  • Lenticular galaxy (a disc with no arms) · +6

Trivia

Hard to believe

  • Messier object. One of the 110 showpieces of the Messier list — catalogued as M85.

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.
  • Lenticular. A lenticular galaxy: it has a disc like a spiral but has run out of the gas needed to make new stars, leaving the arms behind.

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 9.1 you'll want a small backyard telescope, over in Coma Berenices.
  • 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
Com
dist ly
35898901.422
dso type
G
hubble
S0-a
mag
9.05
messier
yes
messier number
085
name
NGC 4382
radial velocity kms
769
redshift
0.0026
size arcmin
6.95
surface brightness
22.87

About NGC 4382

NGC 4382 is a rare galaxy. It lies about 35,898,901.4 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Com and shines at apparent magnitude 9.05.

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 4382 in the constellation Com. At apparent magnitude 9.05, a small backyard telescope will bring it into view.

Like any astronomical target, NGC 4382 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 4382 is a rare galaxy

NGC 4382 scores 38 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the rare tier. Another 12 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 4 science badges — Galaxy, Outside our galaxy entirely, Messier object and Lenticular galaxy (a disc with no arms) — 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.