We use cookies to deliver essential features and to measure their performance. Learn more.
Home
Search Objects
Major Solar System Objects
Comets
Asteroids
Spacecrafts
Star Maps
Orbits
public  Greenwich, UK Greenwich, UK  ⓘ
TimezoneEurope/London
Sunrise: 7:27 
Transit: 12:45 
Sunset: 18:02
sunny   (Daytime)  
What's Visible Now • Tonight Timeline
Search  close
All Constellations »  Ursa Major »  Deep Sky Objects » 

NGC 3878 - Elliptical Galaxy in Ursa Major

Above the horizon.  Rise: 1:29 | Tran: 11:05 | Set: 20:42
Alt: 62.23°   Az: 120.36°   Direction: East-South-East

NGC 3878 is a Elliptical Galaxy in the Ursa Major constellation. NGC 3878 is situated north of the celestial equator and, as such, it is more easily visible from the northern hemisphere. Given its B magnitude of 15.5, NGC 3878 is visible only through long exposure photography.

The image below is a photograph of NGC 3878 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 NGC 3878 - Elliptical Galaxy in Ursa Major star
/>
DSS2 image of NGC 3878 in the Red band. The green region on the image is a representation of the major (0.6 arcmin) and minor (0.6 arcmin) axes of the object's apparent size.

Celestial Coordinates

Apparent

11h 47m 35s
+33° 04’ 00”
22h 05m 19s
09h 52m 54s

J2000

11h 46m 18s
+33° 12’ 16”

Finder Chart

The simplified sky charts below show the position of NGC 3878 in the sky. The first chart has a field of view of 60° while the second one has a field of view of 10°.

Finder chart NGC 3878 - Elliptical Galaxy in Ursa Major star
Simplified finder chart for NGC 3878 - Elliptical Galaxy in Ursa Major.

Finder chart NGC 3878 - Elliptical Galaxy in Ursa Major star
Simplified finder chart for NGC 3878 - Elliptical Galaxy in Ursa Major.

Photometric Information

The following table lists the magnitude of NGC 3878 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).

15.5
11.96
11.23
10.94

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 NGC 3878.

21.82 mag/arcsec2

Apparent Size

The following table reports NGC 3878 apparent angular size. The green area displayed on top of the DSS2 image of NGC 3878 is a visual representation of it.
0.6 arcmin
0.6 arcmin
145°

Morphological Classification

NGC 3878 - Elliptical Galaxy in Ursa Major 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 NGC 3878 - Elliptical Galaxy in Ursa Major in the Hubble de Vaucouleurs sequence.

NGC 3878 - Elliptical Galaxy in Ursa Major
Visualization of the morphological classification of NGC 3878 - Elliptical Galaxy in Ursa Major, 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

Today's NGC 3878 - Elliptical Galaxy in Ursa Major rise, transit and set times from Greenwich, UK are the following (all times relative to the local timezone Europe/London):

Azimuth: 56.9°
Max altitude: 71.6°
Azimuth: 303.1°