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Uncommon galaxy 25 EP

NGC 6384

RA 263.1013° · Dec 7.0603° · openngc

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Score breakdown

· 3 badges
25 pts · Uncommon
Uncommon 34 pts → Rare
  • Galaxy +14
  • Outside our galaxy entirely +6
  • Spiral galaxy +5
Total score 25

9 more points to reach Rare.

Badges

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

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. Deep in the extragalactic distance — further than the entire Virgo Cluster of galaxies.
  • 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 10.6 you'll want a small backyard telescope, over in Ophiuchus.
  • Seen from everywhere. It sits almost on the celestial equator, so it can be seen from essentially anywhere on Earth.
  • Best time of year. It stands highest in the middle of the night around June — that's when to go looking.

Could we get there?

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

Properties

constellation
Oph
dist ly
78516624.472
dso type
G
hubble
Sbc
mag
10.63
name
NGC 6384
radial velocity kms
1680
redshift
0.0056
size arcmin
2.45
surface brightness
21.72

About NGC 6384

NGC 6384 is an uncommon galaxy. It lies about 78,516,624.5 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Oph and shines at apparent magnitude 10.63.

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 6384 in the constellation Oph. At apparent magnitude 10.63, a small backyard telescope will bring it into view.

Like any astronomical target, NGC 6384 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 6384 is an uncommon galaxy

NGC 6384 scores 25 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the uncommon tier. Another 9 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 3 science badges — Galaxy, Outside our galaxy entirely 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.