NGC 1954 — Sbc in Lepus
Sbc in Lepus, 3.6 arcminutes across, its light 150 million years old. Measured by HyperLEDA, photographed by Pan-STARRS1. Recorded once.
About NGC 1954
What you are looking at
NGC 1954 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 157,000 light-years, about 1.6 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. One supernova has been recorded in it: SN 2013ex. It is cited in 73 scientific papers indexed by SIMBAD, and recorded there under 16 different catalogue designations.
When this light set out
Its light has been travelling for about 150 million years. When it left, the first birds had appeared. The galaxy is moving away from us at about 3,126 km/s (7.0 million mph), carried by the expansion of the universe.
Finding it in the sky
NGC 1954 lies in Lepus. It is best placed on winter evenings: around 9:30 pm in January it stands about 36° 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: IC 2132 (0.2° away on the sky, at least 410,000 light-years from it); NGC 1906 (2.7° away on the sky, at least 7,010,000 light-years from it).
By apparent size it is number 312 of the 12,657 galaxies on the Galaxy Origins register.
Measurements
| Catalogue | PGC 17422 |
|---|---|
| Morphological type | Sbc |
| Angular diameter | 3.62′ |
| Right ascension | 05h32m48.4s |
| Declination | -14°03′46.0″ |
| Constellation | Lepus |
| Inclination | 61.5° |
| Light travel time | 150 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 3.6 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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