Galaxy
Hockey Stick Galaxy (NGC4656)
In Canes Venatici (CVn) • Magnitude 10.5 • 6.5 arcminutes
Open the free AstroPlanner with Hockey Stick Galaxy pre-selected, scored against your telescope, location, and the live cloud forecast.
A warped interacting galaxy near the Whale Galaxy.
Hockey Stick Galaxy at a glance
| Catalog IDs | N 4656 |
| Type | Galaxy |
| Constellation | Canes Venatici (CVn) |
| Right ascension | 12h 43m 58s |
| Declination | +32° 10' 13" |
| Apparent magnitude | 10.50 |
| Surface brightness | 20.6 mag/arcsec² |
| Angular size | 6.5 × 0.7 arcmin |
| Max altitude at 45°N | 77° |
| Best imaging months | Mar, Apr, May, Jun |
How to image Hockey Stick Galaxy
Hockey Stick Galaxy sits in the constellation Canes Venatici at right ascension 12h 43m 58s and declination +32° 10' 13". 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, Hockey Stick Galaxy needs the darkest skies you can find: surface brightness, not just apparent magnitude, drives whether it will lift out of the gradient.