NGC 5806 — Sb in Virgo
Sb in Virgo, 3.0 arcminutes across, its light 65 million years old. Measured by HyperLEDA, photographed by Pan-STARRS1. Recorded once.
About NGC 5806
What you are looking at
NGC 5806 is a spiral with a sizeable central bulge and well-defined arms, close in type to the Milky Way. Its disc is steeply tilted, about 60° from face-on, so it appears as a long oval. From edge to edge its visible disc spans about 57,000 light-years (taking its redshift distance, which for a galaxy this near is approximate), about half 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 2004; the most recent include SN 2004dg, SN 2012P. It is cited in 310 scientific papers indexed by SIMBAD, and recorded there under 26 different catalogue designations.
When this light set out
Its light has been travelling for about 65 million years. When it left, an asteroid had ended the age of dinosaurs. The galaxy is moving away from us at about 1,349 km/s (3.0 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 5806 lies in Virgo. It is best placed on summer evenings: around 9:30 pm in June it stands about 52° 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 5811 (0.3° away on the sky, at least 330,000 light-years from it); UGC 9661 (0.5° away on the sky, at least 580,000 light-years from it); NGC 5838 (1.4° away on the sky, at least 1,550,000 light-years from it); NGC 5839 (1.4° away on the sky, at least 1,560,000 light-years from it), and 7 more.
By apparent size it is number 507 of the 12,657 galaxies on the Galaxy Origins register.
Measurements
| Catalogue | PGC 53578 |
|---|---|
| Morphological type | Sb |
| Angular diameter | 3.03′ |
| Right ascension | 15h00m00.4s |
| Declination | +01°53′28.6″ |
| Constellation | Virgo |
| Inclination | 60.4° |
| Light travel time | 65 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 3.0 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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