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Rare galaxy 39 EP

NGC 6806

RA 294.2710° · Dec -42.2963° · openngc

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Score breakdown

· 6 badges
39 pts · Rare
Rare 50 pts → Epic
  • Galaxy +14
  • Toward the galactic centre +8
  • Outside our galaxy entirely +6
  • Spiral galaxy +5
  • On the zodiac +3
  • Faint fuzzy (mag > 13) +3
Total score 39

11 more points to reach Epic.

Badges

  • Galaxy · +14
  • Outside our galaxy entirely · +6
  • Spiral galaxy · +5
  • Toward the galactic centre · +8
  • On the zodiac · +3
  • Faint fuzzy (mag > 13) · +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. 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 13.2 it is far too faint for the eye: this one belongs to cameras and long exposures, over in Sagittarius.
  • Southern sky. It rides the southern half of the sky — an easier target the further south you are.
  • Best time of year. It stands highest in the middle of the night around July — that's when to go looking.

Could we get there?

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

Properties

constellation
Sgr
dist ly
270079867.3128
dso type
G
hubble
Sc
mag
13.19
name
NGC 6806
radial velocity kms
5741
redshift
0.0193
size arcmin
1.22
surface brightness
22.68

About NGC 6806

NGC 6806 is a rare galaxy. It lies about 270,079,867.3 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Sgr and shines at apparent magnitude 13.19.

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 6806 in the constellation Sgr. At apparent magnitude 13.19, it takes a larger telescope or a long-exposure image to capture.

Like any astronomical target, NGC 6806 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 6806 is a rare galaxy

NGC 6806 scores 39 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the rare tier. Another 11 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 6 science badges — Galaxy, Outside our galaxy entirely, Spiral galaxy, Toward the galactic centre, 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.