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Rare nebula 36 EP

NGC 5189

RA 203.3871° · Dec -65.9741° · openngc

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Score breakdown

· 4 badges
36 pts · Rare
Rare 50 pts → Epic
  • Planetary nebula (a dying star's shell) +12
  • Coming towards us +10
  • Nebula +8
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) +6
Total score 36

14 more points to reach Epic.

Badges

  • Nebula · +8
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) · +6
  • Planetary nebula (a dying star's shell) · +12
  • Coming towards us · +10

Trivia

What it actually is

  • What it actually is. A planetary nebula: the shed outer atmosphere of a dying Sun-like star, lit from within by the naked stellar core left behind.

Sense of scale

  • In perspective. Far away by human standards, yet still a local address inside the Milky Way's spiral arms.

Find it in the sky

  • How to spot it. At magnitude 10.3 you'll want a small backyard telescope, over in Musca.
  • Southern sky only. So far south it never rises for most of the northern hemisphere. To see it you'd have to travel to Chile, South Africa or Australia.
  • 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.

Getting there

  • Aboard Voyager 1. ≈ 96.4 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).
  • Fastest probe ever. ≈ 8.6 million years even at the Parker Solar Probe's 192 km/s.

Properties

constellation
Mus
dist ly
5487.1467
dso type
PN
mag
10.3
name
NGC 5189
radial velocity kms
-8
size arcmin
2.33

About NGC 5189

NGC 5189 is a rare nebula. It lies about 5,487.1 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Mus and shines at apparent magnitude 10.3.

A planetary nebula: the shed outer atmosphere of a dying Sun-like star, lit from within by the naked stellar core left behind.

How to see it

Look for NGC 5189 in the constellation Mus. At apparent magnitude 10.3, a small backyard telescope will bring it into view.

Like any astronomical target, NGC 5189 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 5189 is a rare nebula

NGC 5189 scores 36 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the rare tier. Another 14 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 4 science badges — Nebula, Distant (over 1,000 light-years), Planetary nebula (a dying star's shell) and Coming towards us — 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.