About Stephan's Quintet
Stephan's Quintet is an epic galaxy. It lies about 300,321,548.9 light-years from Earth and sits in the constellation Peg.
A whole group of galaxies bound together, the same kind of structure our Milky Way belongs to.
Epic galaxy 54 EP
Stephan's Quintet
RA 338.9958° · Dec 33.9583° · openngc
Score breakdown
· 4 badgesEpic 78 pts → Anomaly
- Galaxy group +26
- Galaxy +14
- Has a proper name +8
- Outside our galaxy entirely +6
Total score 54
24 more points to reach Anomaly.
Badges
- Galaxy · +14
- Outside our galaxy entirely · +6
- Has a proper name · +8
- Galaxy group · +26
Trivia
What it actually is
- What it actually is. A whole group of galaxies bound together, the same kind of structure our Milky Way belongs to.
Sense of scale
- In perspective. Deep in the extragalactic distance — further than the entire Virgo Cluster of galaxies.
- Sense of scale. Groups like this are the bricks of the cosmic web: the largest structures gravity has had time to build.
- 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
- Where to look. You'll find it in the constellation Pegasus.
- Northern sky. It rides the northern half of the sky — an easier target the further north you are.
- Best time of year. It stands highest in the middle of the night around August — that's when to go looking.
Could we get there?
- Verdict. Impossible with our current technology — and the next millennium of it.
Properties
- constellation
- Peg
- dist ly
- 300321548.8609
- dso type
- GGroup
- name
- Stephan's Quintet
- named
- yes
- radial velocity kms
- 6376
- redshift
- 0.0215
- size arcmin
- 4.4
Nearby objects
- Uncommon NGC 7318B galaxy · <0.1° away
- Uncommon NGC 7318 galaxy · <0.1° away
- Uncommon NGC 7318A galaxy · <0.1° away
- Uncommon NGC 7320 galaxy · <0.1° away
- Uncommon NGC 7319 galaxy · <0.1° away
- Uncommon NGC 7317 galaxy · <0.1° away
- Uncommon NGC 7320C galaxy · <0.1° away
- Uncommon NGC 7331 galaxy · 0.5° away
How to see it
Look for Stephan's Quintet in the constellation Peg.
Like any astronomical target, Stephan's Quintet 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 Stephan's Quintet is an epic galaxy
Stephan's Quintet scores 54 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the epic tier. Another 24 points would lift it into a rarer tier.
That score comes from 4 science badges — Galaxy, Outside our galaxy entirely, Has a proper name and Galaxy group — 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.