NGC 1300 — Sbc in Eridanus
Sbc in Eridanus, 5.9 arcminutes across, its light 76 million years old. Measured by HyperLEDA, photographed by Pan-STARRS1. Recorded once.
About NGC 1300
NGC 1300 is the textbook barred spiral. A straight bar crosses its centre, and two long arms sweep away from its ends. Hubble's image of it is one of the most widely reproduced pictures of a barred galaxy, and at its very centre a small spiral of its own lies hidden inside the bar.
What you are looking at
NGC 1300 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 62° 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
SIMBAD, the reference database astronomers use, classes it as a Seyfert galaxy: its nucleus is lit by gas falling into its central black hole, though dust hides part of that glow from us. One supernova has been recorded in it: SN 2022acko. It is cited in 637 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 76 million years. When it left, dinosaurs were at their peak. The galaxy is moving away from us at about 1,578 km/s (3.5 million mph), carried by the expansion of the universe.
Finding it in the sky
NGC 1300 lies in Eridanus. It is best placed on winter evenings: around 9:30 pm in December it stands about 31° 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 1297 (0.3° away on the sky, at least 430,000 light-years from it); NGC 1315 (2.1° away on the sky, at least 2,800,000 light-years from it); NGC 1325A (2.3° away on the sky, at least 2,990,000 light-years from it); NGC 1325 (2.4° away on the sky, at least 3,170,000 light-years from it), and 4 more.
By apparent size it is number 81 of the 12,657 galaxies on the Galaxy Origins register.
Measurements
| Catalogue | PGC 12412 |
|---|---|
| Morphological type | Sbc |
| Angular diameter | 5.94′ |
| Right ascension | 03h19m41.1s |
| Declination | -19°24′40.3″ |
| Constellation | Eridanus |
| Inclination | 61.8° |
| Light travel time | 76 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 5.9 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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