Planetary nebula
NGC 4361 (NGC4361)
In Corvus (Crv) • Magnitude 10.9 • 1.1 arcminutes
Open the free AstroPlanner with NGC 4361 pre-selected, scored against your telescope, location, and the live cloud forecast.
Planetary nebula in Corvus.
NGC 4361 at a glance
| Catalog IDs | N 4361 |
| Type | Planetary nebula |
| Constellation | Corvus (Crv) |
| Right ascension | 12h 24m 31s |
| Declination | -18° 47' 05" |
| Apparent magnitude | 10.90 |
| Surface brightness | 19.6 mag/arcsec² |
| Angular size | 1.1 × 1.1 arcmin |
| Max altitude at 45°N | 26° |
| Best imaging months | Mar, Apr, May |
How to image NGC 4361
NGC 4361 sits in the constellation Corvus at right ascension 12h 24m 31s and declination -18° 47' 05". 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 planetary nebula, NGC 4361 typically appears small and intense, so a long focal length and OIII or Ha narrowband filters bring out structure.