NGC 3054 — Sb in Hydra
Sb in Hydra, 3.6 arcminutes across, its light 116 million years old. Measured by HyperLEDA, photographed by Pan-STARRS1. Recorded once.
About NGC 3054
What you are looking at
NGC 3054 is a spiral with a sizeable central bulge and well-defined arms, close in type to the Milky Way. It is tilted about 55° 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 120,000 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 an emission-line galaxy: its spectrum shows the glow of gas lit by young stars. Three supernovae have been recorded in it, the first in 2004; the most recent include SN 2004de, SN 2006T, SN 2022crv. It is cited in 154 scientific papers indexed by SIMBAD, and recorded there under 15 different catalogue designations.
When this light set out
What a telescope records of NGC 3054 is light that left it about 116 million years ago; on Earth, the first flowering plants had appeared. The galaxy is moving away from us at about 2,428 km/s (5.4 million mph), carried by the expansion of the universe.
Finding it in the sky
In the sky, NGC 3054 sits within the constellation Hydra. It is best placed on spring evenings: around 9:30 pm in March it stands about 24° 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 3051 (1.6° away on the sky, at least 3,210,000 light-years from it); NGC 3084 (1.8° away on the sky, at least 3,570,000 light-years from it); NGC 3089 (2.9° away on the sky, at least 5,800,000 light-years from it).
By apparent size it is number 326 of the 12,657 galaxies on the Galaxy Origins register.
Measurements
| Catalogue | PGC 28571 |
|---|---|
| Morphological type | Sb |
| Angular diameter | 3.56′ |
| Right ascension | 09h54m28.6s |
| Declination | -25°42′12.1″ |
| Constellation | Hydra |
| Inclination | 54.6° |
| Light travel time | 116 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 3.6 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.
Take this galaxy — $1,290 Browse the Collection