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Uncommon galaxy 28 EP

NGC 4654

RA 190.9857° · Dec 13.1267° · openngc

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Score breakdown

· 4 badges
28 pts · Uncommon
Uncommon 34 pts → Rare
  • Galaxy +14
  • Outside our galaxy entirely +6
  • Spiral galaxy +5
  • On the zodiac +3
Total score 28

6 more points to reach Rare.

Badges

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

Trivia

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

Could we get there?

  • Verdict. Impossible with our current technology — and the next millennium of it.

Properties

constellation
Vir
dist ly
48610185.5831
dso type
G
hubble
Sc
mag
10.49
name
NGC 4654
radial velocity kms
1041
redshift
0.0035
size arcmin
4.72
surface brightness
22.65

About NGC 4654

NGC 4654 is an uncommon galaxy. It lies about 48,610,185.6 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Vir and shines at apparent magnitude 10.49.

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 4654 in the constellation Vir. At apparent magnitude 10.49, a small backyard telescope will bring it into view.

Like any astronomical target, NGC 4654 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 4654 is an uncommon galaxy

NGC 4654 scores 28 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the uncommon tier. Another 6 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 4 science badges — Galaxy, Outside our galaxy entirely, 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.