Galaxy
String of Pearls Galaxy (NGC55)
In Sculptor (Scl) • Magnitude 8.5 • 30 arcminutes
Open the free AstroPlanner with String of Pearls Galaxy pre-selected, scored against your telescope, location, and the live cloud forecast.
An irregular galaxy in Sculptor often paired with NGC 253.
String of Pearls Galaxy at a glance
| Catalog IDs | N 55 |
| Type | Galaxy |
| Constellation | Sculptor (Scl) |
| Right ascension | 00h 14m 54s |
| Declination | -39° 11' 48" |
| Apparent magnitude | 8.50 |
| Surface brightness | 22.5 mag/arcsec² |
| Angular size | 29.9 × 3.0 arcmin |
| Max altitude at 45°N | 6° |
| Best imaging months | Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec |
How to image String of Pearls Galaxy
String of Pearls Galaxy sits in the constellation Sculptor at right ascension 00h 14m 54s and declination -39° 11' 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, String of Pearls Galaxy needs the darkest skies you can find: surface brightness, not just apparent magnitude, drives whether it will lift out of the gradient.