Galaxy
Spindle Galaxy (NGC3115)
In Sextans (Sex) • Magnitude 9.1 • 7.1 arcminutes
Open the free AstroPlanner with Spindle Galaxy pre-selected, scored against your telescope, location, and the live cloud forecast.
Lenticular galaxy in Sextans.
Spindle Galaxy at a glance
| Catalog IDs | N 3115 |
| Type | Galaxy |
| Constellation | Sextans (Sex) |
| Right ascension | 10h 05m 14s |
| Declination | -07° 43' 07" |
| Apparent magnitude | 9.10 |
| Surface brightness | 23.0 mag/arcsec² |
| Angular size | 7.1 × 3.0 arcmin |
| Max altitude at 45°N | 37° |
| Best imaging months | Feb, Mar, Apr |
How to image Spindle Galaxy
Spindle Galaxy sits in the constellation Sextans at right ascension 10h 05m 14s and declination -07° 43' 07". 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, Spindle Galaxy needs the darkest skies you can find: surface brightness, not just apparent magnitude, drives whether it will lift out of the gradient.