Galaxy
NGC 5566 (NGC5566)
In Virgo (Vir) • Magnitude 10.5 • 5.4 arcminutes
Open the free AstroPlanner with NGC 5566 pre-selected, scored against your telescope, location, and the live cloud forecast.
Barred spiral in Virgo.
NGC 5566 at a glance
| Catalog IDs | N 5566 |
| Type | Galaxy |
| Constellation | Virgo (Vir) |
| Right ascension | 14h 20m 20s |
| Declination | +03° 56' 02" |
| Apparent magnitude | 10.50 |
| Surface brightness | 23.3 mag/arcsec² |
| Angular size | 5.4 × 2.1 arcmin |
| Max altitude at 45°N | 49° |
| Best imaging months | Apr, May, Jun |
How to image NGC 5566
NGC 5566 sits in the constellation Virgo at right ascension 14h 20m 20s and declination +03° 56' 02". 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 5566 needs the darkest skies you can find: surface brightness, not just apparent magnitude, drives whether it will lift out of the gradient.