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Rare galaxy 37 EP

NGC 4548

RA 188.8602° · Dec 14.4963° · openngc

Real photograph of NGC 4548 📷 Real photo
NASA, ESA, and J. Lee (California Institute of Technology) (CC BY-SA 4.0)
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Score breakdown

· 4 badges
37 pts · Rare
Rare 50 pts → Epic
  • Galaxy +14
  • Messier object +12
  • Outside our galaxy entirely +6
  • Spiral galaxy +5
Total score 37

13 more points to reach Epic.

Badges

  • Galaxy · +14
  • Outside our galaxy entirely · +6
  • Messier object · +12
  • Spiral galaxy · +5

Trivia

Hard to believe

  • Messier object. One of the 110 showpieces of the Messier list — catalogued as M91.

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 11 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
22964122.1548
dso type
G
hubble
Sb
mag
10.96
messier
yes
messier number
091
name
NGC 4548
radial velocity kms
492
redshift
0.0016
size arcmin
5.55
surface brightness
23.24

About NGC 4548

NGC 4548 is a rare galaxy. It lies about 22,964,122.2 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Com and shines at apparent magnitude 10.96.

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 4548 in the constellation Com. At apparent magnitude 10.96, a small backyard telescope will bring it into view.

Like any astronomical target, NGC 4548 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 4548 is a rare galaxy

NGC 4548 scores 37 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the rare tier. Another 13 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 4 science badges — Galaxy, Outside our galaxy entirely, Messier object and Spiral galaxy — 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.