NGC 3887 — Sbc in Crater
Sbc in Crater, 4.2 arcminutes across, its light 58 million years old. Measured by HyperLEDA, photographed by Pan-STARRS1. Recorded once.
About NGC 3887
What you are looking at
NGC 3887 is a spiral of the same broad class astronomers give the Milky Way: a moderate bulge and clearly drawn arms. It is tilted about 43° 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 70,000 light-years (taking its redshift distance, which for a galaxy this near is approximate), about 71% 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, though dust hides part of that glow from us. It is cited in 154 scientific papers indexed by SIMBAD, and recorded there under 14 different catalogue designations.
When this light set out
Its light has been travelling for about 58 million years. When it left, an asteroid had ended the age of dinosaurs. The galaxy is moving away from us at about 1,208 km/s (2.7 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 3887 lies in Crater. It is best placed on spring evenings: around 9:30 pm in April it stands about 33° high in the south, seen from the middle of the United States.
By apparent size it is number 217 of the 12,657 galaxies on the Galaxy Origins register.
Measurements
| Catalogue | PGC 36754 |
|---|---|
| Morphological type | Sbc |
| Angular diameter | 4.15′ |
| Right ascension | 11h47m04.6s |
| Declination | -16°51′16.6″ |
| Constellation | Crater |
| Inclination | 42.9° |
| Light travel time | 58 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 4.2 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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