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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

New Comet C/2025 J1 (Borisov) Discovered in May 2025
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 Telescopium
All Constellations »  Telescopium »  Deep Sky Objects » 

IC 4956 - Elliptical Galaxy in Telescopium

Below the horizon.  Never rises today
Alt: -11.41°   Az: 203.78°   Direction: South-South-West

IC 4956 is a Elliptical Galaxy in the Telescopium constellation. IC 4956 is situated south of the celestial equator and, as such, it is more easily visible from the southern hemisphere. Given its B magnitude of 12.98, IC 4956 is visible with the help of a telescope having an aperture of 10 inches (250mm) or more.

The image below is a photograph of IC 4956 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 4956 - Elliptical Galaxy in Telescopium star
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DSS2 image of IC 4956 in the Red band. The green region on the image is a representation of the major (1.73 arcmin) and minor (1.67 arcmin) axes of the object's apparent size.

Celestial Coordinates

Apparent

20h 13m 17s
-45° 30’ 58”
02h 17m 22s
22h 30m 40s

J2000

20h 11m 30s
-45° 35’ 35”

Finder Chart

The simplified sky charts below show the position of IC 4956 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 4956 - Elliptical Galaxy in Telescopium.

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Finder chart for IC 4956 - Elliptical Galaxy in Telescopium.

Photometric Information

The following table lists the magnitude of IC 4956 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).

12.98
9.87
9.12
8.84

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 4956.

23.43 mag/arcsec2

Apparent Size

The following table reports IC 4956 apparent angular size. The green area displayed on top of the DSS2 image of IC 4956 is a visual representation of it.
1.73 arcmin
1.67 arcmin
115°

Morphological Classification

IC 4956 - Elliptical Galaxy in Telescopium is classified as Elliptical (E) according to the Hubble and de Vaucouleurs galaxy morphological classification. The diagram below shows a visual representation of the position of IC 4956 - Elliptical Galaxy in Telescopium in the Hubble de Vaucouleurs sequence.

IC 4956 - Elliptical Galaxy in Telescopium
Visualization of the morphological classification of IC 4956 - Elliptical Galaxy in Telescopium, Elliptical (E).
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 4956 - Elliptical Galaxy in Telescopium is currently not visible from Greenwich, UK