NGC 5308 — S0 in Ursa Major
S0 in Ursa Major, 4.3 arcminutes across, its light 97 million years old. Measured by HyperLEDA, photographed by Pan-STARRS1. Recorded once.
About NGC 5308
What you are looking at
NGC 5308 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. 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 121,000 light-years, about 1.2 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. One supernova has been recorded in it: SN 1996bk. It is cited in 219 scientific papers indexed by SIMBAD, and recorded there under 16 different catalogue designations.
When this light set out
What a telescope records of NGC 5308 is light that left it about 97 million years ago; on Earth, dinosaurs were at their peak. The galaxy is moving away from us at about 2,014 km/s (4.5 million mph), carried by the expansion of the universe.
Finding it in the sky
NGC 5308 lies in Ursa Major. 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: UGC 8714 (0.6° away on the sky, at least 1,020,000 light-years from it); UGC 8684 (0.6° away on the sky, at least 1,020,000 light-years from it); UGC 8822 (1.0° away on the sky, at least 1,740,000 light-years from it); UGC 8741 (1.2° away on the sky, at least 1,950,000 light-years from it), and 7 more.
By apparent size it is number 183 of the 12,657 galaxies on the Galaxy Origins register.
Measurements
| Catalogue | PGC 48860 |
|---|---|
| Morphological type | S0 |
| Angular diameter | 4.33′ |
| Right ascension | 13h47m00.4s |
| Declination | +60°58′23.0″ |
| Constellation | Ursa Major |
| Inclination | 90.0° |
| Light travel time | 97 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 4.3 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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