The Sculptor galaxy (NGC 253) will be well placed for observation. It will reach its highest point in the sky at around midnight local time.
At a declination of -25°17', it is easiest to see from the southern hemisphere but cannot be seen from latitudes much north of 44°N.
From Ashburn, it will be visible between 23:26 and 02:39. It will become accessible at around 23:26, when it rises 21° above your south-eastern horizon, and then reach its highest point in the sky at 01:05, 25° above your southern horizon. It will become inaccessible at around 02:39 when it sinks to 21° above your south-western horizon.
At magnitude 7.1, NGC253 is quite faint, and certainly not visible to the naked eye, but can be viewed through a pair of binoculars or small telescope.
The position of NGC253 is as follows:
| Object | Right Ascension | Declination | Constellation | Magnitude | Angular Size |
| NGC253 | 00h47m30s | -25°17' | Sculptor | 7.1 | 28'00" |
The coordinates above are given in J2000.0.
| The sky on 04 October 2017 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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96% 14 days old |
All times shown in EDT.
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Source
The circumstances of this event were computed using the DE405 planetary ephemeris published by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).
This event was automatically generated by searching the ephemeris for planetary alignments which are of interest to amateur astronomers, and the text above was generated based on an estimate of your location.
Image credit
© Digitised Sky Survey (DSS); Second Palomar Observatory Sky Survey (POSS-II)