NGC 1084 — Sc in Eridanus
Sc in Eridanus, 3.4 arcminutes across, its light 68 million years old. Measured by HyperLEDA, photographed by Pan-STARRS1. Recorded once.
About NGC 1084
NGC 1084 is a spiral that has hosted several supernovae in recent decades.
What you are looking at
NGC 1084 is a late-type spiral: a small central bulge and open, loosely wound arms full of young stars and star-forming gas. It is tilted about 50° to our line of sight, enough to show both the shape of its arms and the depth of its disc. From edge to edge its visible disc spans about 67,000 light-years (taking its redshift distance, which for a galaxy this near is approximate), about 69% of the Milky Way’s width.
What astronomers have recorded
SIMBAD, the reference database astronomers use, classes it as an emission-line galaxy: its spectrum shows the glow of gas lit by young stars. Five supernovae have been recorded in it, the first in 1963; the most recent include SN 1998dl, SN 2009H, SN 2012ec. It is cited in 392 scientific papers indexed by SIMBAD, and recorded there under 32 different catalogue designations.
When this light set out
The light that reaches us from NGC 1084 today set out about 68 million years ago, when dinosaurs were at their peak. The galaxy is moving away from us at about 1,422 km/s (3.2 million mph), carried by the expansion of the universe. For a galaxy this close, its own motion through space is a large share of that speed, so the distance worked out from it is approximate; distances measured from individual stars in it can differ.
Finding it in the sky
NGC 1084 lies in Eridanus. It is best placed on winter evenings: around 9:30 pm in December it stands about 42° high in the south, seen from the middle of the United States.
Its neighbours
At almost the same distance from us, and so its neighbours in space as well as on the sky: NGC 1110 (0.8° away on the sky, at least 980,000 light-years from it); NGC 1051 (1.4° away on the sky, at least 1,650,000 light-years from it); NGC 1047 (1.5° away on the sky, at least 1,740,000 light-years from it); NGC 1042 (1.6° away on the sky, at least 1,940,000 light-years from it), and 3 more.
By apparent size it is number 384 of the 12,657 galaxies on the Galaxy Origins register.
Measurements
| Catalogue | PGC 10464 |
|---|---|
| Morphological type | Sc |
| Angular diameter | 3.40′ |
| Right ascension | 02h45m59.9s |
| Declination | -07°34′42.9″ |
| Constellation | Eridanus |
| Inclination | 49.9° |
| Light travel time | 68 million years |
| Bar | not recorded |
Check every figure above in the NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database
What is sold
A print of this galaxy and the record of the calculation, once. When it sells it leaves the register and is not offered again. We assign no names and no ownership — nobody can sell you those.
At 3.4 arcminutes this is a Exceptional galaxy, which is the tier where a real photograph shows clear structure and dust lanes. The tier comes from the measured diameter, not from a price list.
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