NGC 5951 — SBc in Serpens
SBc in Serpens, 3.0 arcminutes across, its light 85 million years old. Measured by HyperLEDA, photographed by Pan-STARRS1. Recorded once.
About NGC 5951
What you are looking at
NGC 5951 is a late-type spiral: a small central bulge and open, loosely wound arms full of young stars and star-forming gas. A bar of stars runs straight across its centre, as one does across the centre of the Milky Way. 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 75,000 light-years, about 77% of the Milky Way’s width.
What astronomers have recorded
SIMBAD, the reference database astronomers use, classes it as a member of a group of galaxies. It is cited in 123 scientific papers indexed by SIMBAD, and recorded there under 21 different catalogue designations.
When this light set out
Its light has been travelling for about 85 million years. When it left, dinosaurs were at their peak. The galaxy is moving away from us at about 1,778 km/s (4.0 million mph), carried by the expansion of the universe.
Finding it in the sky
In the sky, NGC 5951 sits within the constellation Serpens. It is best placed on summer evenings: around 9:30 pm in June it stands about 65° 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 5953 (0.3° away on the sky, at least 400,000 light-years from it); NGC 5954 (0.3° away on the sky, at least 420,000 light-years from it); UGC 9951 (1.4° away on the sky, at least 2,090,000 light-years from it); NGC 5962 (1.7° away on the sky, at least 2,580,000 light-years from it), and 2 more.
By apparent size it is number 503 of the 12,657 galaxies on the Galaxy Origins register.
Measurements
| Catalogue | PGC 55435 |
|---|---|
| Morphological type | SBc |
| Angular diameter | 3.03′ |
| Right ascension | 15h33m43.1s |
| Declination | +15°00′26.0″ |
| Constellation | Serpens |
| Inclination | 84.6° |
| Light travel time | 85 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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