RA 189.0866° · Dec 25.9877° · openngc
📷 Real photoComputing the sky for your location…
12 more points to reach Epic.
Needle Galaxy is a rare galaxy. It lies about 58,807,149.8 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Com and shines at apparent magnitude 10.86.
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 Needle Galaxy in the constellation Com. At apparent magnitude 10.86, a small backyard telescope will bring it into view.
Like any astronomical target, Needle Galaxy 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.
Needle Galaxy 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 5 science badges — Galaxy, Outside our galaxy entirely, Has a proper name, Spiral galaxy and Big on the sky — 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.