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public  Greenwich, UK Greenwich, UK  ⓘ
Timezone: Europe/London
Sunrise: 5:05 
Transit: 12:56 
Sunset: 20:48
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In Evidence

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Detailed information about the discovery of Comet C/2025 J1 (Borisov) and pointers to useful resources to track and observe it. Read more...

Other deep sky objects in Perseus
All Constellations »  Perseus »  Deep Sky Objects » 

IC 311 - Spiral Galaxy in Perseus

Above the horizon.  Circumpolar today
Alt: 36.46°   Az: 290.95°   Direction: West-North-West

IC 311 is a Spiral Galaxy in the Perseus constellation. IC 311 is situated north of the celestial equator and, as such, it is more easily visible from the northern hemisphere. Given its B magnitude of 15.7, IC 311 is visible only through long exposure photography.

The image below is a photograph of IC 311 from the Digitized Sky Survey 2 (DSS2 - see the credits section) taken in the red channel. The area of sky represented in the image is 0.5000x0.5000 degrees (30.00x30.00 arcmins).

Image of IC 311 - Spiral Galaxy in Perseus star
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DSS2 image of IC 311 in the Red band. The green region on the image is a representation of the major (1 arcmin) and minor (1 arcmin) axes of the object's apparent size.

Celestial Coordinates

Apparent

03h 18m 26s
+40° 05’ 43”
05h 16m 16s
08h 34m 43s

J2000

03h 16m 46s
+40° 00’ 12”

Finder Chart

The simplified sky charts below show the position of IC 311 in the sky. The first chart has a field of view of 60° while the second one has a field of view of 10°.

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Finder chart for IC 311 - Spiral Galaxy in Perseus.

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Finder chart for IC 311 - Spiral Galaxy in Perseus.

Photometric Information

The following table lists the magnitude of IC 311 in different bands of the electomagnetic spectrum (when available), from the B band (445nm wavelength, corresponding to the Blue color), to the V band ( 551nm wavelength, corresponding to Green/Yellow color), to the J, H, K bands (corresponding to 1220nm, 1630nm, 2190nm wavelengths respectively, which are colors not visible to the human eye).

15.7
10.53
9.71
9.4

For more information about photometry in astronomy, check the photometric system article on Wikipedia.

The surface brightess reported below is an indication of the brightness per unit of angular area of IC 311.

24.39 mag/arcsec2

Apparent Size

The following table reports IC 311 apparent angular size. The green area displayed on top of the DSS2 image of IC 311 is a visual representation of it.
1 arcmin
1 arcmin
100°

Morphological Classification

IC 311 - Spiral Galaxy in Perseus is classified as Spiral (SAb) according to the Hubble and de Vaucouleurs galaxy morphological classification. The diagram below shows a visual representation of the position of IC 311 - Spiral Galaxy in Perseus in the Hubble de Vaucouleurs sequence.

IC 311 - Spiral Galaxy in Perseus
Visualization of the morphological classification of IC 311 - Spiral Galaxy in Perseus, Spiral (SAb).
Credits for the background image: Antonio Ciccolella / M. De Leo / CC BY

Rise and Set Times

Location: Greenwich, UK
Latitude: 51° 28’ 47” N
Longitude: 0° 00’ 00” E
Timezone: Europe/London

IC 311 - Spiral Galaxy in Perseus is circumpolar and transits at 11:32 UTC (altitude: 78.6°)