NGC 2566 — Sb in Puppis
Sb in Puppis, 4.3 arcminutes across, its light 79 million years old. Measured by HyperLEDA, photographed by Pan-STARRS1. Recorded once.
About NGC 2566
What you are looking at
NGC 2566 is a spiral with a sizeable central bulge and well-defined arms, close in type to the Milky Way. It is tilted about 49° 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 97,000 light-years, close to 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. It is cited in 105 scientific papers indexed by SIMBAD, and recorded there under 17 different catalogue designations.
When this light set out
What a telescope records of NGC 2566 is light that left it about 79 million years ago; on Earth, dinosaurs were at their peak. The galaxy is moving away from us at about 1,638 km/s (3.7 million mph), carried by the expansion of the universe.
Finding it in the sky
In the sky, NGC 2566 sits within the constellation Puppis. It is best placed on spring evenings: around 9:30 pm in March 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 2559 (2.0° away on the sky, at least 2,730,000 light-years from it).
By apparent size it is number 196 of the 12,657 galaxies on the Galaxy Origins register.
Measurements
| Catalogue | PGC 23303 |
|---|---|
| Morphological type | Sb |
| Angular diameter | 4.26′ |
| Right ascension | 08h18m45.6s |
| Declination | -25°29′58.2″ |
| Constellation | Puppis |
| Inclination | 48.6° |
| Light travel time | 79 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 4.3 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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