The sky around NGC 5886 at true scale, north up and east left, with stars to magnitude 8. The circles show the field of a low-power eyepiece and of 10×50 binoculars.
NGC 5886 is a lenticular galaxy (E-S0) in Boötes, 359 million light-years away
NGC 5886 (PGC 54298) is a lenticular galaxy (E-S0) in the constellation Boötes, 359 million light-years away. It shines at magnitude 14.9 and spans 54″ × 36″ of sky, about 94,000 light-years across. It is a telescope object, 6 inches or larger, and it is highest in the evening sky in June.
Galaxy: a system of billions of stars, gas and dust held together by gravity, far outside the Milky Way. Spiral galaxies have a disk with arms; elliptical galaxies are smooth, round or oval swarms of older stars.
Finding NGC 5886 from Nekkar
NGC 5886 lies 2.2° northeast of Nekkar, the magnitude 3.5 star. That is within one binocular field.
NGC 5886 is highest in the evening in June
The chart gives its height above the horizon at 9 pm through the year, from 60°N to 40°S. It can be seen from the whole northern hemisphere and south to about 49°S, and never sets north of 49°N.
NGC 5886 is 359 million light-years away
The light seen from NGC 5886 tonight left it about 359 million years ago, long before modern humans existed. It ranks 368 of 422 by distance among the galaxies on Go Astronomy. Distance source: Cosmicflows-4 (Tully et al. 2023).
Objects within 6° of NGC 5886
No other Messier, Caldwell or Herschel 400 object lies within 6°.
