Galaxy
Whale Galaxy (NGC4631)
In Canes Venatici (CVn) • Magnitude 9.8 • 16 arcminutes
Open the free AstroPlanner with Whale Galaxy pre-selected, scored against your telescope, location, and the live cloud forecast.
An edge-on spiral in Canes Venatici resembling a whale.
Whale Galaxy at a glance
| Catalog IDs | N 4631, C 32 |
| Type | Galaxy |
| Constellation | Canes Venatici (CVn) |
| Right ascension | 12h 42m 07s |
| Declination | +32° 31' 48" |
| Apparent magnitude | 9.75 |
| Surface brightness | 13.8 mag/arcsec² |
| Angular size | 15.5 × 2.7 arcmin |
| Max altitude at 45°N | 78° |
| Best imaging months | Mar, Apr, May, Jun |
How to image Whale Galaxy
Whale Galaxy sits in the constellation Canes Venatici at right ascension 12h 42m 07s and declination +32° 31' 48". 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, Whale Galaxy needs the darkest skies you can find: surface brightness, not just apparent magnitude, drives whether it will lift out of the gradient.