NGC 1255 — SABb in Fornax
SABb in Fornax, 4.1 arcminutes across, its light 81 million years old. Measured by HyperLEDA, photographed by Pan-STARRS1. Recorded once.
About NGC 1255
What you are looking at
NGC 1255 is a spiral with a sizeable central bulge and well-defined arms, close in type to the Milky Way. A weak bar of stars crosses its centre. It is tilted about 59° 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 95,000 light-years, close to 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. One supernova has been recorded in it: SN 2022ame. It is cited in 160 scientific papers indexed by SIMBAD, and recorded there under 20 different catalogue designations.
When this light set out
Its light has been travelling for about 81 million years. When it left, dinosaurs were at their peak. The galaxy is moving away from us at about 1,689 km/s (3.8 million mph), carried by the expansion of the universe.
Finding it in the sky
In the sky, NGC 1255 sits within the constellation Fornax. It is best placed on winter evenings: around 9:30 pm in December it stands about 24° 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 1302 (1.5° away on the sky, at least 2,060,000 light-years from it); NGC 1306 (1.7° away on the sky, at least 2,410,000 light-years from it); NGC 1201 (2.1° away on the sky, at least 3,020,000 light-years from it); NGC 1292 (2.2° away on the sky, at least 3,050,000 light-years from it).
By apparent size it is number 233 of the 12,657 galaxies on the Galaxy Origins register.
Measurements
| Catalogue | PGC 12007 |
|---|---|
| Morphological type | SABb |
| Angular diameter | 4.05′ |
| Right ascension | 03h13m32.0s |
| Declination | -25°43′30.8″ |
| Constellation | Fornax |
| Inclination | 58.8° |
| Light travel time | 81 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 4.1 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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