NGC 3175 — Sab in Antlia
Sab in Antlia, 5.2 arcminutes across, its light 52 million years old. Measured by HyperLEDA, photographed by Pan-STARRS1. Recorded once.
About NGC 3175
What you are looking at
NGC 3175 is an early-type spiral: a large, bright central bulge wrapped in smooth, tightly wound arms. Its disc is steeply tilted, about 76° from face-on, so it appears as a long oval. From edge to edge its visible disc spans about 80,000 light-years (taking its redshift distance, which for a galaxy this near is approximate), about 82% of the Milky Way’s width.
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. Boris Vorontsov-Velyaminov listed it as VV 796 in his catalogue of interacting galaxies. It is cited in 112 scientific papers indexed by SIMBAD, and recorded there under 24 different catalogue designations.
When this light set out
The light that reaches us from NGC 3175 today set out about 52 million years ago, when the planet had come through its hottest interval since the dinosaurs. The galaxy is moving away from us at about 1,091 km/s (2.4 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
NGC 3175 lies in Antlia. It is best placed on spring evenings: around 9:30 pm in April it stands about 21° 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 3137 (1.2° away on the sky, at least 1,130,000 light-years from it); NGC 3113 (2.3° away on the sky, at least 2,090,000 light-years from it).
By apparent size it is number 114 of the 12,657 galaxies on the Galaxy Origins register.
Measurements
| Catalogue | PGC 29892 |
|---|---|
| Morphological type | Sab |
| Angular diameter | 5.25′ |
| Right ascension | 10h14m42.1s |
| Declination | -28°52′19.0″ |
| Constellation | Antlia |
| Inclination | 76.2° |
| Light travel time | 52 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 5.2 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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