NGC 2655 — S0-a in Camelopardalis
S0-a in Camelopardalis, 3.9 arcminutes across, its light 67 million years old. Measured by HyperLEDA, photographed by Pan-STARRS1. Recorded once.
About NGC 2655
What you are looking at
NGC 2655 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 66° from face-on, so it appears as a long oval. From edge to edge its visible disc spans about 76,000 light-years (taking its redshift distance, which for a galaxy this near is approximate), about 77% of the Milky Way’s width.
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. Halton Arp included it in his 1966 Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies as Arp 225, a list of galaxies with unusual, disturbed shapes. Boris Vorontsov-Velyaminov listed it as VV 1248 in his catalogue of interacting galaxies. One supernova has been recorded in it: SN 2011B. It is cited in 321 scientific papers indexed by SIMBAD, and recorded there under 40 different catalogue designations.
When this light set out
Its light has been travelling for about 67 million years. When it left, dinosaurs were at their peak. The galaxy is moving away from us at about 1,385 km/s (3.1 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 2655 sits within the constellation Camelopardalis. From most of the United States it never sets: it circles the north celestial pole all year, and stands highest on spring evenings, around March.
Its neighbours
At almost the same distance from us, and so its neighbours in space as well as on the sky: UGC 4701 (0.3° away on the sky, at least 380,000 light-years from it); UGC 4714 (0.5° away on the sky, at least 590,000 light-years from it); NGC 2715 (0.7° away on the sky, at least 760,000 light-years from it); NGC 2591 (1.0° away on the sky, at least 1,110,000 light-years from it), and 3 more.
By apparent size it is number 249 of the 12,657 galaxies on the Galaxy Origins register.
Measurements
| Catalogue | PGC 25069 |
|---|---|
| Morphological type | S0-a |
| Angular diameter | 3.93′ |
| Right ascension | 08h55m38.4s |
| Declination | +78°13′24.4″ |
| Constellation | Camelopardalis |
| Inclination | 66.2° |
| Light travel time | 67 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 3.9 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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