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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 Sculptor
All Constellations »  Sculptor »  Deep Sky Objects » 

NGC 491 - Barred Spiral Galaxy in Sculptor

Above the horizon.  Rise: 8:28 | Tran: 10:37 | Set: 12:45
Alt: 1.82°   Az: 159.49°   Direction: South-South-East

NGC 491 is a Barred Spiral Galaxy in the Sculptor constellation. NGC 491 is situated south of the celestial equator and, as such, it is more easily visible from the southern hemisphere. Given its visual magnitude of 12.54, NGC 491 is visible with the help of a telescope having an aperture of 10 inches (250mm) or more.

The image below is a photograph of NGC 491 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 491 - Barred Spiral Galaxy in Sculptor star
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DSS2 image of NGC 491 in the Red band. The green region on the image is a representation of the major (1.35 arcmin) and minor (0.99 arcmin) axes of the object's apparent size.

Celestial Coordinates

Apparent

01h 22m 30s
-33° 55’ 51”
22h 20m 08s
23h 42m 38s

J2000

01h 21m 20s
-34° 03’ 47”

Finder Chart

The simplified sky charts below show the position of NGC 491 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 NGC 491 - Barred Spiral Galaxy in Sculptor.

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Finder chart for NGC 491 - Barred Spiral Galaxy in Sculptor.

Photometric Information

The following table lists the magnitude of NGC 491 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).

13.28
12.54
10.35
9.7
9.39

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 491.

22.38 mag/arcsec2

Apparent Size

The following table reports NGC 491 apparent angular size. The green area displayed on top of the DSS2 image of NGC 491 is a visual representation of it.
1.35 arcmin
0.99 arcmin
95°

Morphological Classification

NGC 491 - Barred Spiral Galaxy in Sculptor is classified as Barred Spiral (Bb) according to the Hubble and de Vaucouleurs galaxy morphological classification. The diagram below shows a visual representation of the position of NGC 491 - Barred Spiral Galaxy in Sculptor in the Hubble de Vaucouleurs sequence.

NGC 491 - Barred Spiral Galaxy in Sculptor
Visualization of the morphological classification of NGC 491 - Barred Spiral Galaxy in Sculptor, Barred Spiral (Bb).
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 491 - Barred Spiral Galaxy in Sculptor rise, transit and set times from Greenwich, UK are the following (all times relative to the local timezone Europe/London):

Azimuth: 123.9°
Max altitude: 4.6°
Azimuth: 236.1°