NGC 2820 — SBc in Ursa Major
SBc in Ursa Major, 3.8 arcminutes across, its light 76 million years old. Measured by HyperLEDA, photographed by Pan-STARRS1. Recorded once.
About NGC 2820
What you are looking at
NGC 2820 is a late-type spiral: a small central bulge and open, loosely wound arms full of young stars and star-forming gas. A bar of stars runs straight across its centre, as one does across the centre of the Milky Way. We see it almost exactly edge-on, so its whole disc appears as one thin band of light, with dust showing as a dark line along its length. From edge to edge its visible disc spans about 82,000 light-years, about 84% of the Milky Way’s width.
What astronomers have recorded
SIMBAD, the reference database astronomers use, classes it as one of a pair of galaxies. It is cited in 175 scientific papers indexed by SIMBAD, and recorded there under 18 different catalogue designations.
When this light set out
What a telescope records of NGC 2820 is light that left it about 76 million years ago; on Earth, dinosaurs were at their peak. The galaxy is moving away from us at about 1,574 km/s (3.5 million mph), carried by the expansion of the universe.
Finding it in the sky
NGC 2820 lies in Ursa Major. 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: NGC 2814 (4′ away on the sky, at least 80,000 light-years from it); NGC 2805 (0.2° away on the sky, at least 290,000 light-years from it); NGC 2880 (2.0° away on the sky, at least 2,590,000 light-years from it); UGC 4990 (2.2° away on the sky, at least 2,950,000 light-years from it).
By apparent size it is number 282 of the 12,657 galaxies on the Galaxy Origins register.
Measurements
| Catalogue | PGC 26498 |
|---|---|
| Morphological type | SBc |
| Angular diameter | 3.75′ |
| Right ascension | 09h21m45.8s |
| Declination | +64°15′28.4″ |
| Constellation | Ursa Major |
| Inclination | 90.0° |
| Light travel time | 76 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 3.8 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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