NGC 1964 — SABb in Lepus
SABb in Lepus, 5.1 arcminutes across, its light 80 million years old. Measured by HyperLEDA, photographed by Pan-STARRS1. Recorded once.
About NGC 1964
What you are looking at
NGC 1964 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. Its disc is steeply tilted, about 67° from face-on, so it appears as a long oval. From edge to edge its visible disc spans about 119,000 light-years, about 1.2 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 shines brightly with the light of gas falling into its central black hole. One supernova has been recorded in it: SN 2021jad. It is cited in 144 scientific papers indexed by SIMBAD, and recorded there under 22 different catalogue designations.
When this light set out
The light that reaches us from NGC 1964 today set out about 80 million years ago, when dinosaurs were at their peak. The galaxy is moving away from us at about 1,661 km/s (3.7 million mph), carried by the expansion of the universe.
Finding it in the sky
NGC 1964 lies in Lepus. It is best placed on winter evenings: around 9:30 pm in January it stands about 28° 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 2130 (1.2° away on the sky, at least 1,730,000 light-years from it); NGC 1979 (1.4° away on the sky, at least 1,900,000 light-years from it); IC 2137 (1.6° away on the sky, at least 2,230,000 light-years from it).
By apparent size it is number 118 of the 12,657 galaxies on the Galaxy Origins register.
Measurements
| Catalogue | PGC 17436 |
|---|---|
| Morphological type | SABb |
| Angular diameter | 5.14′ |
| Right ascension | 05h33m21.8s |
| Declination | -21°56′44.7″ |
| Constellation | Lepus |
| Inclination | 67.2° |
| Light travel time | 80 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 5.1 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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