NGC 3169 — Sa in Sextans
Sa in Sextans, 4.3 arcminutes across, its light 59 million years old. Measured by HyperLEDA, photographed by Pan-STARRS1. Recorded once.
About NGC 3169
What you are looking at
NGC 3169 is an early-type spiral: a large, bright central bulge wrapped in smooth, tightly wound arms. It is tilted about 57° 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 74,000 light-years (taking its redshift distance, which for a galaxy this near is approximate), about 76% 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. Two supernovae have been recorded in it, the first in 1984; the most recent include SN 1984E, SN 2003cg. It is cited in 384 scientific papers indexed by SIMBAD, and recorded there under 35 different catalogue designations.
When this light set out
What a telescope records of NGC 3169 is light that left it about 59 million years ago; on Earth, an asteroid had ended the age of dinosaurs. The galaxy is moving away from us at about 1,232 km/s (2.8 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 3169 sits within the constellation Sextans. It is best placed on spring evenings: around 9:30 pm in April it stands about 53° 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 3166 (0.1° away on the sky, at least 130,000 light-years from it); NGC 3165 (0.2° away on the sky, at least 210,000 light-years from it); NGC 3156 (0.5° away on the sky, at least 530,000 light-years from it).
By apparent size it is number 180 of the 12,657 galaxies on the Galaxy Origins register.
Measurements
| Catalogue | PGC 29855 |
|---|---|
| Morphological type | Sa |
| Angular diameter | 4.33′ |
| Right ascension | 10h14m14.8s |
| Declination | +03°27′59.3″ |
| Constellation | Sextans |
| Inclination | 56.7° |
| Light travel time | 59 million years |
| Bar | not recorded |
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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