NGC 2815 — SBb in Hydra
SBb in Hydra, 3.5 arcminutes across, its light 122 million years old. Measured by HyperLEDA, photographed by Pan-STARRS1. Recorded once.
About NGC 2815
What you are looking at
NGC 2815 is a spiral with a sizeable central bulge and well-defined arms, close in type to the Milky Way. A bar of stars runs straight across its centre, as one does across the centre of the Milky Way. Its disc is steeply tilted, about 72° from face-on, so it appears as a long oval. From edge to edge its visible disc spans about 122,000 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 is lit by gas falling into its central black hole, though dust hides part of that glow from us. One supernova has been recorded in it: SN 2011co. It is cited in 121 scientific papers indexed by SIMBAD, and recorded there under 20 different catalogue designations.
When this light set out
The light that reaches us from NGC 2815 today set out about 122 million years ago, when the first flowering plants had appeared. The galaxy is moving away from us at about 2,545 km/s (5.7 million mph), carried by the expansion of the universe.
Finding it in the sky
In the sky, NGC 2815 sits within the constellation Hydra. It is best placed on spring evenings: around 9:30 pm in March it stands about 26° 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 2891 (2.7° away on the sky, at least 5,680,000 light-years from it).
By apparent size it is number 363 of the 12,657 galaxies on the Galaxy Origins register.
Measurements
| Catalogue | PGC 26157 |
|---|---|
| Morphological type | SBb |
| Angular diameter | 3.45′ |
| Right ascension | 09h16m19.7s |
| Declination | -23°37′59.9″ |
| Constellation | Hydra |
| Inclination | 71.5° |
| Light travel time | 122 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 3.5 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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