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Uncommon galaxy 28 EP

NGC 6821

RA 296.1003° · Dec -6.8334° · openngc

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Score breakdown

· 4 badges
28 pts · Uncommon
Uncommon 34 pts → Rare
  • Galaxy +14
  • Outside our galaxy entirely +6
  • Spiral galaxy +5
  • Faint fuzzy (mag > 13) +3
Total score 28

6 more points to reach Rare.

Badges

  • Galaxy · +14
  • Outside our galaxy entirely · +6
  • Spiral galaxy · +5
  • 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 13.1 it is far too faint for the eye: this one belongs to cameras and long exposures, over in Aquila.
  • 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 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
Aql
dist ly
70163494.8804
dso type
G
hubble
Scd
mag
13.07
name
NGC 6821
radial velocity kms
1502
redshift
0.005
size arcmin
1.03
surface brightness
22.33

About NGC 6821

NGC 6821 is an uncommon galaxy. It lies about 70,163,494.9 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Aql and shines at apparent magnitude 13.07.

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 6821 in the constellation Aql. At apparent magnitude 13.07, it takes a larger telescope or a long-exposure image to capture.

Like any astronomical target, NGC 6821 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 6821 is an uncommon galaxy

NGC 6821 scores 28 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the uncommon tier. Another 6 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 4 science badges — Galaxy, Outside our galaxy entirely, Spiral galaxy 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.