RA 203.9510° · Dec 2.9989° · openngc
14 more points to reach Epic.
NGC 5231 is a rare galaxy. It lies about 304,093,028.8 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Vir and shines at apparent magnitude 16.15.
A barred spiral — a straight bar of stars driving right through the nucleus, feeding gas inwards. Our own Milky Way is one of these.
Look for NGC 5231 in the constellation Vir. At apparent magnitude 16.15, it takes a larger telescope or a long-exposure image to capture.
Like any astronomical target, NGC 5231 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.
NGC 5231 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 5 science badges — Galaxy, Outside our galaxy entirely, Barred spiral galaxy, On the zodiac and Faint fuzzy (mag > 13) — 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.