Galaxy
Sculptor Galaxy (NGC253)
In Sculptor (Scl) • Magnitude 7.1 • 28 arcminutes
Open the free AstroPlanner with Sculptor Galaxy pre-selected, scored against your telescope, location, and the live cloud forecast.
A bright edge-on starburst galaxy in Sculptor.
Sculptor Galaxy at a glance
| Catalog IDs | N 253, C 65 |
| Type | Galaxy |
| Constellation | Sculptor (Scl) |
| Right ascension | 00h 47m 35s |
| Declination | -25° 17' 24" |
| Apparent magnitude | 7.10 |
| Surface brightness | 13.0 mag/arcsec² |
| Angular size | 28.0 × 6.0 arcmin |
| Max altitude at 45°N | 20° |
| Best imaging months | Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec |
How to image Sculptor Galaxy
Sculptor Galaxy sits in the constellation Sculptor at right ascension 00h 47m 35s and declination -25° 17' 24". To frame and integrate it well, AstroPlanner will compute the optimal moonless window for tonight from your location, the field-of-view fit against your sensor and focal length, the suggested total integration time given your aperture and sky Bortle class, and a cloud-aware schedule that drops it from the plan if your nearest cloud forecast spike overlaps the best altitude window. As a galaxy, Sculptor Galaxy needs the darkest skies you can find: surface brightness, not just apparent magnitude, drives whether it will lift out of the gradient.