NGC 524 — S0-a in Pisces
S0-a in Pisces, 3.4 arcminutes across, its light 116 million years old. Measured by HyperLEDA, photographed by Pan-STARRS1. Recorded once.
About NGC 524
What you are looking at
NGC 524 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 look down on it almost face-on, so its structure is laid out as if on a map. From edge to edge its visible disc spans about 113,000 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. It is cited in 500 scientific papers indexed by SIMBAD, and recorded there under 19 different catalogue designations.
When this light set out
What a telescope records of NGC 524 is light that left it about 116 million years ago; on Earth, the first flowering plants had appeared. The galaxy is moving away from us at about 2,423 km/s (5.4 million mph), carried by the expansion of the universe.
Finding it in the sky
NGC 524 lies in Pisces. It is best placed on autumn evenings: around 9:30 pm in November it stands about 60° 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: NGC 516 (0.2° away on the sky, at least 330,000 light-years from it); NGC 518 (0.2° away on the sky, at least 490,000 light-years from it); NGC 532 (0.3° away on the sky, at least 610,000 light-years from it); NGC 509 (0.4° away on the sky, at least 730,000 light-years from it), and 12 more.
By apparent size it is number 391 of the 12,657 galaxies on the Galaxy Origins register.
Measurements
| Catalogue | PGC 5222 |
|---|---|
| Morphological type | S0-a |
| Angular diameter | 3.37′ |
| Right ascension | 01h24m47.7s |
| Declination | +09°32′19.6″ |
| Constellation | Pisces |
| Inclination | 5.5° |
| Light travel time | 116 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 3.4 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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