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Rare galaxy 42 EP

ESO 273-014

RA 224.6265° · Dec -47.6989° · openngc

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Score breakdown

· 4 badges
42 pts · Rare
Rare 50 pts → Epic
  • Galaxy +14
  • Irregular galaxy (no shape at all) +12
  • Ghostly low surface brightness +10
  • Outside our galaxy entirely +6
Total score 42

8 more points to reach Epic.

Badges

  • Galaxy · +14
  • Outside our galaxy entirely · +6
  • Irregular galaxy (no shape at all) · +12
  • Ghostly low surface brightness · +10

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.
  • Irregular. An irregular galaxy — no disc, no bulge, no symmetry. Most have been pulled out of shape by a larger neighbour's gravity.

Sense of scale

  • In perspective. Further than Andromeda, the most distant thing the unaided human eye can see.
  • 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 12 you'll want a small backyard telescope, over in Lupus.
  • 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 May — that's when to go looking.

Could we get there?

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

Properties

constellation
Lup
dist ly
49015270.4629
dso type
G
hubble
IB
mag
11.96
name
ESO 273-014
radial velocity kms
1050
redshift
0.0035
size arcmin
4.79
surface brightness
24.77

About ESO 273-014

ESO 273-014 is a rare galaxy. It lies about 49,015,270.5 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Lup and shines at apparent magnitude 11.96.

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 ESO 273-014 in the constellation Lup. At apparent magnitude 11.96, a small backyard telescope will bring it into view.

Like any astronomical target, ESO 273-014 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 ESO 273-014 is a rare galaxy

ESO 273-014 scores 42 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the rare tier. Another 8 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 4 science badges — Galaxy, Outside our galaxy entirely, Irregular galaxy (no shape at all) and Ghostly low surface brightness — 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.