We use cookies to deliver essential features and to measure their performance. Learn more.
menu
A Complete Guide to the Solar System and the Night Sky
Home
Search Objects
Major Solar System Objects
Comets
Asteroids
Spacecrafts
Star Maps
Orbits
public  Greenwich, UK Greenwich, UK  ⓘ
Timezone: Europe/London
Sunrise: 7:20 
Transit: 12:46 
Sunset: 18:11
sleep   (Nighttime)  
What's Visible Now • Tonight Timeline
Search  close

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

NGC 879 - Irregular Galaxy in Cetus

Above the horizon.  Rise: 20:36 | Tran: 1:53 | Set: 7:06
Alt: 23.61°   Az: 144.97°   Direction: South-East

NGC 879 is a Irregular Galaxy in the Cetus constellation. NGC 879 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 visual magnitude of 15.5, NGC 879 is visible only through long exposure photography.

The image below is a photograph of NGC 879 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 879 - Irregular Galaxy in Cetus star
/>
DSS2 image of NGC 879 in the Red band. The green region on the image is a representation of the major (0.77 arcmin) and minor (0.64 arcmin) axes of the object's apparent size.

Celestial Coordinates

Apparent

02h 18m 04s
-08° 51’ 01”
21h 51m 21s
00h 09m 25s

J2000

02h 16m 50s
-08° 57’ 51”

Finder Chart

The simplified sky charts below show the position of NGC 879 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 879 - Irregular Galaxy in Cetus star
Simplified finder chart for NGC 879 - Irregular Galaxy in Cetus.

Finder chart NGC 879 - Irregular Galaxy in Cetus star
Simplified finder chart for NGC 879 - Irregular Galaxy in Cetus.

Photometric Information

The following table lists the magnitude of NGC 879 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).

15.29
15.5
13.19
12.47
12.61

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 879.

23.38 mag/arcsec2

Apparent Size

The following table reports NGC 879 apparent angular size. The green area displayed on top of the DSS2 image of NGC 879 is a visual representation of it.
0.77 arcmin
0.64 arcmin
16°

Morphological Classification

NGC 879 - Irregular Galaxy in Cetus is classified as Irregular (I) according to the Hubble and de Vaucouleurs galaxy morphological classification. The diagram below shows a visual representation of the position of NGC 879 - Irregular Galaxy in Cetus in the Hubble de Vaucouleurs sequence.

NGC 879 - Irregular Galaxy in Cetus
Visualization of the morphological classification of NGC 879 - Irregular Galaxy in Cetus, Irregular (I).
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 879 - Irregular Galaxy in Cetus rise, transit and set times from Greenwich, UK are the following (all times relative to the local timezone Europe/London):

Azimuth: 98.9°
Max altitude: 29.7°
Azimuth: 261.1°