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public  Greenwich, UK Greenwich, UK  ⓘ
TimezoneEurope/London
Sunrise: 7:52 
Transit: 11:51 
Sunset: 15:50
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All Constellations »  Aquarius »  Deep Sky Objects » 

NGC 6978 - Spiral Galaxy in Aquarius

Above the horizon.  Rise: 10:16 | Tran: 15:46 | Set: 21:16
Alt: 30.82°   Az: 158.81°   Direction: South-South-East

NGC 6978 is a Spiral Galaxy in the Aquarius constellation. NGC 6978 is situated close to the celestial equator and, as such, it is at least partly visible from both hemispheres in certain times of the year. Given its B magnitude of 14.22, NGC 6978 is visible with the help of a telescope having an aperture of 14 inches (350mm) or more.

The image below is a photograph of NGC 6978 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 6978 - Spiral Galaxy in Aquarius star
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DSS2 image of NGC 6978 in the Red band. The green region on the image is a representation of the major (1.51 arcmin) and minor (0.57 arcmin) axes of the object's apparent size.

Celestial Coordinates

Apparent

20h 53m 54s
-05° 36’ 57”
22h 47m 17s
19h 41m 11s

J2000

20h 52m 35s
-05° 42’ 39”

Finder Chart

The simplified sky charts below show the position of NGC 6978 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 6978 - Spiral Galaxy in Aquarius.

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Finder chart for NGC 6978 - Spiral Galaxy in Aquarius.

Photometric Information

The following table lists the magnitude of NGC 6978 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).

14.22
10.74
10.01
9.77

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 6978.

23.07 mag/arcsec2

Apparent Size

The following table reports NGC 6978 apparent angular size. The green area displayed on top of the DSS2 image of NGC 6978 is a visual representation of it.
1.51 arcmin
0.57 arcmin
126°

Morphological Classification

NGC 6978 - Spiral Galaxy in Aquarius 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 NGC 6978 - Spiral Galaxy in Aquarius in the Hubble de Vaucouleurs sequence.

NGC 6978 - Spiral Galaxy in Aquarius
Visualization of the morphological classification of NGC 6978 - Spiral Galaxy in Aquarius, 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

Today's NGC 6978 - Spiral Galaxy in Aquarius rise, transit and set times from Greenwich, UK are the following (all times relative to the local timezone Europe/London):

Azimuth: 95.6°
Max altitude: 32.9°
Azimuth: 264.4°