NGC 3593 — S0-a in Leo
S0-a in Leo, 4.7 arcminutes across, its light 30 million years old. Measured by HyperLEDA, photographed by Pan-STARRS1. Recorded once.
About NGC 3593
What you are looking at
NGC 3593 is a lenticular galaxy: a disc galaxy that has largely used up the gas it needs to form new stars, so its disc is smooth and has no spiral arms. Its disc is turned almost exactly side-on to us: the galaxy appears as a narrow blade of light, and its dust as a dark seam running along it. From edge to edge its visible disc spans about 41,000 light-years (taking its redshift distance, which for a galaxy this near is approximate), about half the width of the Milky Way.
What astronomers have recorded
SIMBAD, the reference database astronomers use, classes it as a member of a group of galaxies. It is cited in 381 scientific papers indexed by SIMBAD, and recorded there under 28 different catalogue designations.
When this light set out
The light that reaches us from NGC 3593 today set out about 30 million years ago, when Antarctica had begun to freeze. The galaxy is moving away from us at about 630 km/s (1.4 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
In the sky, NGC 3593 sits within the constellation Leo. It is best placed on spring evenings: around 9:30 pm in April it stands about 63° 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: M65 (1.1° away on the sky, at least 570,000 light-years from it); M66 (1.4° away on the sky, at least 730,000 light-years from it); Hamburger Galaxy (1.6° away on the sky, at least 840,000 light-years from it).
By apparent size it is number 147 of the 12,657 galaxies on the Galaxy Origins register.
Measurements
| Catalogue | PGC 34257 |
|---|---|
| Morphological type | S0-a |
| Angular diameter | 4.69′ |
| Right ascension | 11h14m37.0s |
| Declination | +12°49′04.2″ |
| Constellation | Leo |
| Inclination | 86.9° |
| Light travel time | 30 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 4.7 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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