NGC 5033 — Sc in Canes Venatici
Sc in Canes Venatici, 9.8 arcminutes across, its light 42 million years old. Measured by HyperLEDA, photographed by Pan-STARRS1. Recorded once.
About NGC 5033
What you are looking at
NGC 5033 is a late-type spiral: a small central bulge and open, loosely wound arms full of young stars and star-forming gas. Its disc is steeply tilted, about 65° from face-on, so it appears as a long oval. From edge to edge its visible disc spans about 120,000 light-years (taking its redshift distance, which for a galaxy this near is approximate), about 1.2 times the width of the Milky Way.
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. Two supernovae have been recorded in it, the first in 1985; the most recent include SN 1985L, SN 2001gd. It is cited in 918 scientific papers indexed by SIMBAD, and recorded there under 59 different catalogue designations.
When this light set out
The light that reaches us from NGC 5033 today set out about 42 million years ago, when the planet had come through its hottest interval since the dinosaurs. The galaxy is moving away from us at about 876 km/s (2.0 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 5033 lies in Canes Venatici. It is best placed on spring evenings: around 9:30 pm in May it stands about 87° 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: UGC 8303 (0.4° away on the sky, at least 280,000 light-years from it); NGC 5014 (0.5° away on the sky, at least 370,000 light-years from it); NGC 5002 (0.6° away on the sky, at least 420,000 light-years from it); NGC 5005 (0.7° away on the sky, at least 500,000 light-years from it), and 5 more.
By apparent size it is number 18 of the 12,657 galaxies on the Galaxy Origins register.
Measurements
| Catalogue | PGC 45948 |
|---|---|
| Morphological type | Sc |
| Angular diameter | 9.84′ |
| Right ascension | 13h13m27.5s |
| Declination | +36°35′37.6″ |
| Constellation | Canes Venatici |
| Inclination | 64.6° |
| Light travel time | 42 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 9.8 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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