NGC 1090 — Sbc in Cetus
Sbc in Cetus, 3.3 arcminutes across, its light 138 million years old. Measured by HyperLEDA, photographed by Pan-STARRS1. Recorded once.
About NGC 1090
What you are looking at
NGC 1090 is a spiral of the same broad class astronomers give the Milky Way: a moderate bulge and clearly drawn arms. Its disc is steeply tilted, about 67° from face-on, so it appears as a long oval. From edge to edge its visible disc spans about 131,000 light-years, about 1.3 times the width of the Milky Way.
What astronomers have recorded
Two supernovae have been recorded in it, the first in 1962; the most recent include SN 1962K, SN 1971T. It is cited in 181 scientific papers indexed by SIMBAD, and recorded there under 19 different catalogue designations.
When this light set out
Its light has been travelling for about 138 million years. When it left, the first birds had appeared. The galaxy is moving away from us at about 2,878 km/s (6.4 million mph), carried by the expansion of the universe.
Finding it in the sky
In the sky, NGC 1090 sits within the constellation Cetus. It is best placed on winter evenings: around 9:30 pm in December it stands about 50° 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 1032 (2.2° away on the sky, at least 5,360,000 light-years from it); NGC 1015 (2.4° away on the sky, at least 5,630,000 light-years from it); UGC 2081 (2.7° away on the sky, at least 6,510,000 light-years from it).
By apparent size it is number 419 of the 12,657 galaxies on the Galaxy Origins register.
Measurements
| Catalogue | PGC 10507 |
|---|---|
| Morphological type | Sbc |
| Angular diameter | 3.30′ |
| Right ascension | 02h46m33.9s |
| Declination | -00°14′49.7″ |
| Constellation | Cetus |
| Inclination | 67.3° |
| Light travel time | 138 million years |
| Bar | yes, from the catalogue |
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 3.3 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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