NGC 5866 — S0-a in Draco
S0-a in Draco, 6.3 arcminutes across, its light 32 million years old. Measured by HyperLEDA, photographed by Pan-STARRS1. Recorded once.
About NGC 5866
NGC 5866, sometimes called the Spindle Galaxy, is a lenticular galaxy seen exactly edge-on, with a thin, sharp dust lane cutting through its bright disc. It may be the object Charles Messier listed as M102, though that remains a subject of debate among historians of astronomy.
What you are looking at
NGC 5866 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. Its disc is turned almost exactly side-on to us: the galaxy appears as a narrow blade of light, and its dust as a dark seam running along it. From edge to edge its visible disc spans about 60,000 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. It is cited in 582 scientific papers indexed by SIMBAD, and recorded there under 23 different catalogue designations.
When this light set out
What a telescope records of NGC 5866 is light that left it about 32 million years ago; on Earth, Antarctica had begun to freeze. The galaxy is moving away from us at about 674 km/s (1.5 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
In the sky, NGC 5866 sits within the constellation Draco. From most of the United States it never sets: it circles the north celestial pole all year, and stands highest on summer evenings, around June.
Its neighbours
At almost the same distance from us, and so its neighbours in space as well as on the sky: NGC 5870 (0.3° away on the sky, at least 160,000 light-years from it); NGC 5866B (0.8° away on the sky, at least 450,000 light-years from it); NGC 5879 (1.3° away on the sky, at least 750,000 light-years from it); Splinter Galaxy (1.4° away on the sky, at least 810,000 light-years from it).
By apparent size it is number 67 of the 12,657 galaxies on the Galaxy Origins register.
Measurements
| Catalogue | PGC 53933 |
|---|---|
| Morphological type | S0-a |
| Angular diameter | 6.31′ |
| Right ascension | 15h06m29.5s |
| Declination | +55°45′47.6″ |
| Constellation | Draco |
| Inclination | 90.0° |
| Light travel time | 32 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 6.3 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.
Take this galaxy — $1,290 Browse the Collection