Galaxy
NGC 3079 (NGC3079)
In Ursa Major (UMa) • Magnitude 10.7 • 8.2 arcminutes
Open the free AstroPlanner with NGC 3079 pre-selected, scored against your telescope, location, and the live cloud forecast.
Edge-on barred spiral in Ursa Major.
NGC 3079 at a glance
| Catalog IDs | N 3079 |
| Type | Galaxy |
| Constellation | Ursa Major (UMa) |
| Right ascension | 10h 01m 58s |
| Declination | +55° 40' 47" |
| Apparent magnitude | 10.70 |
| Surface brightness | 23.2 mag/arcsec² |
| Angular size | 8.2 × 1.3 arcmin |
| Max altitude at 45°N | 79° |
| Best imaging months | Feb, Mar, Apr, May |
How to image NGC 3079
NGC 3079 sits in the constellation Ursa Major at right ascension 10h 01m 58s and declination +55° 40' 47". 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, NGC 3079 needs the darkest skies you can find: surface brightness, not just apparent magnitude, drives whether it will lift out of the gradient.