NGC 1247 — Sbc in Eridanus
Sbc in Eridanus, 3.5 arcminutes across, its light 188 million years old. Measured by HyperLEDA, photographed by Pan-STARRS1. Recorded once.
About NGC 1247
What you are looking at
NGC 1247 is a spiral of the same broad class astronomers give the Milky Way: a moderate bulge and clearly drawn arms. Its disc is turned almost exactly side-on to us: the galaxy appears as a narrow blade of light, and its dust as a dark seam running along it. From edge to edge its visible disc spans about 193,000 light-years, about 2.0 times the width of the Milky Way.
What astronomers have recorded
SIMBAD, the reference database astronomers use, classes it as a member of a group of galaxies. It is cited in 59 scientific papers indexed by SIMBAD, and recorded there under 12 different catalogue designations.
When this light set out
The light that reaches us from NGC 1247 today set out about 188 million years ago, when dinosaurs had begun to dominate. The galaxy is moving away from us at about 3,946 km/s (8.8 million mph), carried by the expansion of the universe.
Finding it in the sky
In the sky, NGC 1247 sits within the constellation Eridanus. It is best placed on winter evenings: around 9:30 pm in December it stands about 40° 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 1241 (1.6° away on the sky, at least 5,150,000 light-years from it); NGC 1242 (1.6° away on the sky, at least 5,210,000 light-years from it); IC 291 (2.4° away on the sky, at least 7,880,000 light-years from it); NGC 1200 (2.5° away on the sky, at least 8,300,000 light-years from it), and 1 more.
By apparent size it is number 332 of the 12,657 galaxies on the Galaxy Origins register.
Measurements
| Catalogue | PGC 11931 |
|---|---|
| Morphological type | Sbc |
| Angular diameter | 3.55′ |
| Right ascension | 03h12m14.3s |
| Declination | -10°28′51.6″ |
| Constellation | Eridanus |
| Inclination | 90.0° |
| Light travel time | 188 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 3.5 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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