Across much of the world the Sculptor galaxy (NGC 253; mag 8.0) will be well placed, high in the sky. It will reach its highest point in the sky at around midnight local time.
At a declination of 25°17'S, it is easiest to see from the southern hemisphere but cannot be seen from latitudes much north of 44°N.
From Seattle, it will not be readily observable since it will lie so far south that it will never rise more than 17° above the 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'S | Sculptor | 7.1 | 28'00" |
The coordinates above are given in J2000.0.
| The sky on 03 October 2024 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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3% 1 day old |
All times shown in PDT.
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Source
The circumstances of this event were computed using the DE430 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)