RA 280.0210° · Dec 59.3340° · openngc
13 more points to reach Epic.
NGC 6696 is a rare galaxy. It lies about 359,128,698.7 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Dra and shines at apparent magnitude 16.01.
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 NGC 6696 in the constellation Dra. At apparent magnitude 16.01, it takes a larger telescope or a long-exposure image to capture.
Like any astronomical target, NGC 6696 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 6696 scores 37 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the rare tier. Another 13 points would lift it into a rarer tier.
That score comes from 5 science badges — Galaxy, Outside our galaxy entirely, Never sets (northern circumpolar), Ghostly low surface brightness 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.