NGC 5254 — Sc in Virgo
Sc in Virgo, 3.3 arcminutes across, its light 111 million years old. Measured by HyperLEDA, photographed by Pan-STARRS1. Recorded once.
About NGC 5254
What you are looking at
NGC 5254 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 67° from face-on, so it appears as a long oval. From edge to edge its visible disc spans about 107,000 light-years, close to the width of the Milky Way.
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. One supernova has been recorded in it: SN 2017ivh. It is cited in 73 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 111 million years. When it left, the first flowering plants had appeared. The galaxy is moving away from us at about 2,316 km/s (5.2 million mph), carried by the expansion of the universe.
Finding it in the sky
In the sky, NGC 5254 sits within the constellation Virgo. It is best placed on spring evenings: around 9:30 pm in May it stands about 39° high in the south, seen from the middle of the United States.
By apparent size it is number 408 of the 12,657 galaxies on the Galaxy Origins register.
Measurements
| Catalogue | PGC 48307 |
|---|---|
| Morphological type | Sc |
| Angular diameter | 3.33′ |
| Right ascension | 13h39m37.9s |
| Declination | -11°29′37.9″ |
| Constellation | Virgo |
| Inclination | 67.2° |
| Light travel time | 111 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 3.3 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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