NGC 1637 — Sc in Eridanus
Sc in Eridanus, 3.2 arcminutes across, its light 34 million years old. Measured by HyperLEDA, photographed by Pan-STARRS1. Recorded once.
About NGC 1637
What you are looking at
NGC 1637 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 31° 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 32,000 light-years (taking its redshift distance, which for a galaxy this near is approximate), about a third 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. Two supernovae have been recorded in it, the first in 1999; the most recent include SN 1999em, SN 2025pht. It is cited in 453 scientific papers indexed by SIMBAD, and recorded there under 20 different catalogue designations.
When this light set out
What a telescope records of NGC 1637 is light that left it about 34 million years ago; on Earth, the planet had come through its hottest interval since the dinosaurs. The galaxy is moving away from us at about 716 km/s (1.6 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
In the sky, NGC 1637 sits within the constellation Eridanus. It is best placed on winter evenings: around 9:30 pm in January it stands about 47° high in the south, seen from the middle of the United States.
By apparent size it is number 456 of the 12,657 galaxies on the Galaxy Origins register.
Measurements
| Catalogue | PGC 15821 |
|---|---|
| Morphological type | Sc |
| Angular diameter | 3.18′ |
| Right ascension | 04h41m28.2s |
| Declination | -02°51′28.5″ |
| Constellation | Eridanus |
| Inclination | 31.1° |
| Light travel time | 34 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 3.2 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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