NGC 2258 — S0 in Camelopardalis
S0 in Camelopardalis, 3.0 arcminutes across, its light 194 million years old. Measured by HyperLEDA, photographed by Pan-STARRS1. Recorded once.
About NGC 2258
What you are looking at
NGC 2258 is a lenticular galaxy: a disc galaxy that has largely used up the gas it needs to form new stars, so its disc is smooth and has no spiral 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 169,000 light-years, about 1.7 times the width of the Milky Way.
What astronomers have recorded
SIMBAD, the reference database astronomers use, classes it as a galaxy with an active nucleus, powered by its central black hole. One supernova has been recorded in it: SN 1997E. It is cited in 68 scientific papers indexed by SIMBAD, and recorded there under 12 different catalogue designations.
When this light set out
What a telescope records of NGC 2258 is light that left it about 194 million years ago; on Earth, dinosaurs had begun to dominate. The galaxy is moving away from us at about 4,060 km/s (9.1 million mph), carried by the expansion of the universe.
Finding it in the sky
NGC 2258 lies in Camelopardalis. From most of the United States it never sets: it circles the north celestial pole all year, and stands highest on winter evenings, around February.
Its neighbours
At almost the same distance from us, and so its neighbours in space as well as on the sky: UGC 3675 (1.5° away on the sky, at least 5,200,000 light-years from it); UGC 3717 (1.9° away on the sky, at least 6,220,000 light-years from it).
By apparent size it is number 510 of the 12,657 galaxies on the Galaxy Origins register.
Measurements
| Catalogue | PGC 19622 |
|---|---|
| Morphological type | S0 |
| Angular diameter | 3.02′ |
| Right ascension | 06h47m46.2s |
| Declination | +74°28′54.6″ |
| Constellation | Camelopardalis |
| Inclination | 61.7° |
| Light travel time | 194 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 3.0 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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