Galaxy
NGC 3486 (NGC3486)
In Leo Minor (LMi) • Magnitude 10.6 • 5.8 arcminutes
Open the free AstroPlanner with NGC 3486 pre-selected, scored against your telescope, location, and the live cloud forecast.
Barred spiral in Leo Minor.
NGC 3486 at a glance
| Catalog IDs | N 3486 |
| Type | Galaxy |
| Constellation | Leo Minor (LMi) |
| Right ascension | 11h 00m 24s |
| Declination | +28° 58' 30" |
| Apparent magnitude | 10.60 |
| Surface brightness | 23.4 mag/arcsec² |
| Angular size | 5.8 × 4.1 arcmin |
| Max altitude at 45°N | 74° |
| Best imaging months | Feb, Mar, Apr, May |
How to image NGC 3486
NGC 3486 sits in the constellation Leo Minor at right ascension 11h 00m 24s and declination +28° 58' 30". 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 3486 needs the darkest skies you can find: surface brightness, not just apparent magnitude, drives whether it will lift out of the gradient.