NGC 1385 — Sc in Fornax
Sc in Fornax, 3.4 arcminutes across, its light 72 million years old. Measured by HyperLEDA, photographed by Pan-STARRS1. Recorded once.
About NGC 1385
What you are looking at
NGC 1385 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 52° 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 71,000 light-years (taking its redshift distance, which for a galaxy this near is approximate), about 73% 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. It is cited in 332 scientific papers indexed by SIMBAD, and recorded there under 35 different catalogue designations.
When this light set out
The light that reaches us from NGC 1385 today set out about 72 million years ago, when dinosaurs were at their peak. The galaxy is moving away from us at about 1,497 km/s (3.3 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 1385 lies in Fornax. It is best placed on winter evenings: around 9:30 pm in December it stands about 25° 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 1367 (0.7° away on the sky, at least 880,000 light-years from it); IC 1952 (1.2° away on the sky, at least 1,520,000 light-years from it); NGC 1401 (1.8° away on the sky, at least 2,290,000 light-years from it); NGC 1398 (1.9° away on the sky, at least 2,330,000 light-years from it), and 6 more.
By apparent size it is number 382 of the 12,657 galaxies on the Galaxy Origins register.
Measurements
| Catalogue | PGC 13368 |
|---|---|
| Morphological type | Sc |
| Angular diameter | 3.40′ |
| Right ascension | 03h37m28.3s |
| Declination | -24°30′04.5″ |
| Constellation | Fornax |
| Inclination | 52.3° |
| Light travel time | 72 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 3.4 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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