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Rare galaxy 40 EP

Sextans B

RA 150.0004° · Dec 5.3322° · openngc

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Score breakdown

· 4 badges
40 pts · Rare
Rare 50 pts → Epic
  • Galaxy +14
  • Irregular galaxy (no shape at all) +12
  • Has a proper name +8
  • Outside our galaxy entirely +6
Total score 40

10 more points to reach Epic.

Badges

  • Galaxy · +14
  • Outside our galaxy entirely · +6
  • Has a proper name · +8
  • Irregular galaxy (no shape at all) · +12

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 11.5 you'll want a small backyard telescope, over in Sextans.
  • 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 February — that's when to go looking.

Could we get there?

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

Properties

constellation
Sex
dist ly
14177970.7951
dso type
G
hubble
IB
mag
11.51
name
Sextans B
named
yes
radial velocity kms
304
redshift
0.001
size arcmin
4.9
surface brightness
23.68

About Sextans B

Sextans B is a rare galaxy. It lies about 14,177,970.8 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Sex and shines at apparent magnitude 11.51.

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 Sextans B in the constellation Sex. At apparent magnitude 11.51, a small backyard telescope will bring it into view.

Like any astronomical target, Sextans B 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 Sextans B is a rare galaxy

Sextans B scores 40 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the rare tier. Another 10 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 Irregular galaxy (no shape at all) — 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.