IC 4653
ILLUSTRATION FROM HUBBLE TYPE S0-a · SURFACE BRIGHTNESS 23.0 MAG/ARCSEC² · MAJOR AXIS 1.61′ · AXIS RATIO 0.61 · POSITION ANGLE 51°
OVERVIEW
] GALAXYIC 4653 is a lenticular galaxy S0-a in the constellation Ara, 85.35 from Earth, shining at apparent magnitude 12.55 (). It is catalogued as 2MASX J17270693-6052448, ESO 138-028 and ESO 138-28, among 9 designations in total.
- WHAT IT IS
- Lenticular galaxy
- HOW FAR
- 85.35
- HOW BIG ON THE SKY
- 1.6
- HOW BRIGHT (V)
The light arriving now left it that long ago.
Small enough that the full Moon would cover it several times over.
A small telescope reaches it.
OBSERVING
] FROM WHERE YOU AREWhat it takes to see IC 4653 for yourself. Everything in this part of the page is worked out for a real horizon, a real night and the equipment you say you have.
Say where you are, and this line says when IC 4653 is worth going out for.
THROUGH AN EYEPIECE
] 150 MM TELESCOPE · 25 MM EYEPIECEOut of reach of binoculars; a 150 mm telescope reaches it. IC 4653 covers 1.6′ of sky against a of 1.08°, so at 48× it is a small patch, centred.
- 48×
- 1.08
- 1.25
- 13.0
- SIZE ON THE SKY
- 1.6
- FILLS OF THE FIELD
- 2% of the width
- APPARENT MAGNITUDE ()
- 12.55 · within reach
IC 4653 is not a point of light, so the limit above is the wrong one to hold it against: the same brightness spread over 1.6′ of sky is harder than a star of it, and goes first — spread out, it comes to 23.0 . Catalogued sizes are measured to a photographic contour, and the part an eye sees is usually smaller.
APPARENT PLACE
] EQUINOX J2026.7Where a telescope has to be pointed today, which is not quite where the catalogue records the object: the coordinate grid itself has turned since the year 2000 the catalogue is referred to.
- RIGHT ASCENSION
- DECLINATION
- GRID TURNED SINCE
- 17.8
- PROPER MOTION SINCE
- none published
Computed for 2026-08-28 00:00 UT. No proper motion is published for IC 4653, so nothing here moves the object; what separates this from the catalogued position above is the coordinate grid turning under it — about fifty arcseconds a year of precession since 2000, and the small nodding of the Earth’s axis on top of that. Aberration and refraction are not included, and neither is parallax; each is under an arcminute, which is also about as well as the catalogued position is known. The same figure for any date.
CATALOG DATA
] 15 FIELDSThe raw catalogue values, as the source published them, with the error bars where one was published — sorted by what each set of figures is about rather than by the order they happened to be stored in.
WHAT KIND OF THING IT IS
What the object is in itself, rather than how it happens to look from here.
- Hubble type
HOW BRIGHT IT IS
What the light adds up to, measured through one filter at a time. A magnitude is a brightness on a backwards scale — the smaller the number, the brighter the object.
- Apparent magnitude ()
- Apparent magnitude ()
- Apparent magnitude ()
- Apparent magnitude ( band)
- Apparent magnitude ()
- Surface brightness
- 22.96
WHERE IT IS AND HOW IT MOVES
Position, motion across the sky and the size it covers on it. These are measurements of the object as seen from here, so every one of them depends on where here is.
- Radial velocity
- 1791
- Redshift (z)
- Redshift (z, CMB frame)
- Major axis
- 1.61
- Minor axis
- 0.98
- 51
OTHER NAMES AND NUMBERS
The identifiers other catalogues file this object under, for anyone joining this data to theirs.
- OpenNGC type code
- G
- Wikidata item
- Q3681927
ALSO KNOWN AS
] 9 DESIGNATIONS- 2MASX 2MASX J17270693-6052448
- ESO ESO 138-028
- ESO ESO 138-28
- ESO-LV ESO-LV 138-0280
- IC IC 4653
- IRAS IRAS 17225-6050
- IRAS IRAS F17225-6050
- LEDA LEDA 60311
- PGC PGC 60311
LOOK IT UP ELSEWHERE
] 4 SERVICESEach link carries the identifier printed beside it. Nothing on this page is a measurement of our own, so a number that disagrees with one of these is worth reporting — and a service that has never catalogued this object under this name will say so plainly.
- SIMBADIC 4653
Cross-identifications, measured values and the reference behind each of them.
- NEDIC 4653
Redshift-independent distances, photometry across the spectrum and the extragalactic literature.
- ADSobject:"IC 4653"
Papers indexed against this object rather than against the string, newest first.
- VizieR48″ around 261.7799 -60.8796
Every published table with a row at this position, searched by coordinates rather than by name.
CITE THIS PAGE
] DR1This page is live and its numbers move when an upstream refreshes, so the citation names the release the rows belong to rather than the day you read them. The release itself is frozen, republished as a bundle, and is what a data-availability statement should point at.
SpaceCatalog. IC 4653 [catalogue entry]. Data release DR1 (2026-08-21). https://spacecatalog.org/object/ic-4653
@misc{spacecatalog_ic-4653,
author = {{SpaceCatalog}},
title = {{IC 4653}},
howpublished = {SpaceCatalog, data release DR1 (2026-08-21)},
year = {2026},
url = {https://spacecatalog.org/object/ic-4653},
note = {Catalogue entry, data release DR1 (2026-08-21). Values from OpenNGC.}
}The values above were taken from OpenNGC — CC-BY-SA-4.0. Citing this page does not replace citing that catalogue, and its licence is share-alike: the terms reach whatever you build from these rows.