NGC 4256 — Sb in Draco
Sb in Draco, 3.9 arcminutes across, its light 121 million years old. Measured by HyperLEDA, photographed by Pan-STARRS1. Recorded once.
About NGC 4256
What you are looking at
NGC 4256 is a spiral with a sizeable central bulge and well-defined arms, close in type to the Milky Way. We see it almost exactly edge-on, so its whole disc appears as one thin band of light, with dust showing as a dark line along its length. From edge to edge its visible disc spans about 136,000 light-years, about 1.4 times the width of the Milky Way.
What astronomers have recorded
SIMBAD, the reference database astronomers use, classes it as one of a pair of galaxies. It is cited in 89 scientific papers indexed by SIMBAD, and recorded there under 19 different catalogue designations.
When this light set out
Its light has been travelling for about 121 million years. When it left, the first flowering plants had appeared. The galaxy is moving away from us at about 2,529 km/s (5.7 million mph), carried by the expansion of the universe.
Finding it in the sky
NGC 4256 lies in Draco. From most of the United States it never sets: it circles the north celestial pole all year, and stands highest on spring evenings, around May.
Its neighbours
At almost the same distance from us, and so its neighbours in space as well as on the sky: NGC 4210 (0.4° away on the sky, at least 760,000 light-years from it); NGC 4332 (0.4° away on the sky, at least 880,000 light-years from it); NGC 4513 (1.4° away on the sky, at least 2,980,000 light-years from it); NGC 4441 (1.4° away on the sky, at least 2,990,000 light-years from it), and 9 more.
By apparent size it is number 261 of the 12,657 galaxies on the Galaxy Origins register.
Measurements
| Catalogue | PGC 39568 |
|---|---|
| Morphological type | Sb |
| Angular diameter | 3.87′ |
| Right ascension | 12h18m43.1s |
| Declination | +65°53′53.8″ |
| Constellation | Draco |
| Inclination | 90.0° |
| Light travel time | 121 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 3.9 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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