RA 333.9232° · Dec 37.3028° · openngc
5 more points to reach Uncommon.
NGC 7242 NED02 is a common galaxy. It sits in the constellation Lac and shines at apparent magnitude 17.87.
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 7242 NED02 in the constellation Lac. At apparent magnitude 17.87, it takes a larger telescope or a long-exposure image to capture.
Like any astronomical target, NGC 7242 NED02 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 7242 NED02 scores 17 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the common tier. Another 5 points would lift it into a rarer tier.
That score comes from 2 science badges — 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.