Menu

NGC 6987 — Galaxy in Indus

Galaxy Fair (24/100)

Elliptical

Magnitude 12.4m Galaxy Indus (Ind) Visible
Star Map
+ List + Plan Star Hop

Observe

1Properties

Magnitude 12.45
Angular Size 2.0′ × 1.6′
Position Angle 125°
Distance 245.22 million ly
Galaxy Type Elliptical (E)
pF, S, vlE, gpmbM, B* p 1'

Position & Identifiers

RA 20h 58m 10.4s
Dec -48° 37' 49.1"
Constellation Indus (Ind)
Catalog NGC 6987

2How easy to spot?

Sign in and configure your equipment and default location to see a personalized row.
Telescope Bortle 3 Bortle 4 Bortle 5
80mm refr. Hard Hard V. hard+
150mm Newt. Medium Hard+ Hard+
C8 203mm Medium+ Medium Hard+
Easy Medium Hard Very hard Impossible

Bortle 3 = rural · 4 = outer suburbs · 5 = suburbs

Medium on Seestar S50

3Visibility

Set a location in User Settings to see visibility data.

Best season Jun – Aug (peak: Jul)

4 Eyepiece View

Log in to set your own equipment
125x TFOV: 0.4° Lim. mag: 13.6
N E

NGC 6987 · 2.0′×1.6′ · N up, E left

5 Best Magnification

Explore

6 Surface Brightness

7 Morphology Decoder

8 Inclination & True Shape

9 Redshift

10 Size Comparator

Discover

11

Light Travel Time Machine

12

Relativistic Travel

Nearby in the Sky

Other targets within a few degrees — pan your scope a little and keep exploring.

Visibility scores assume a 150 mm Newton at Bortle 4.

NGC 7002
Hard+
Elliptical galaxy
Galaxy mag 12.38 1.0° Indus
NGC 7014
Medium
Elliptical galaxy
Galaxy mag 12.3 2.2° Indus
NGC 7029
Medium
Elliptical galaxy
Galaxy mag 11.8 2.3° Indus
NGC 7041
Medium+
Elliptical galaxy
Galaxy mag 11.1 3.0° Indus
T Ind
Medium
Semi-regular variable, range 5.8–6.5
Variable Star mag 6.00 5.2° Indus
Theta Ind
Easy
Easy double, sep 7.3″
Double Star mag 4.39 5.9° Indus
Show on Map

Explore Nightbase

Related knowledge, tools, and stories — no observation planning required.

William Parsons
Built the Leviathan of Parsonstown; first to resolve spiral structure of nebulae
Biography
Galaxies and the Interstellar Medium
The Hubble tuning fork, Tully-Fisher distances, metallicity, Wolf-Rayet stars, HII regions, interstellar dust, the 21-cm hydrogen line, and the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect — the working toolkit astronomers use to read galaxies and the stuff between their stars.
Article
Indus
Mythology, bright stars, and deep-sky highlights.
Constellation
}