NGC 6118 — Sc in Serpens
Sc in Serpens, 4.4 arcminutes across, its light 75 million years old. Measured by HyperLEDA, photographed by Pan-STARRS1. Recorded once.
About NGC 6118
What you are looking at
NGC 6118 is a late-type spiral: a small central bulge and open, loosely wound arms full of young stars and star-forming gas. Its disc is steeply tilted, about 69° from face-on, so it appears as a long oval. From edge to edge its visible disc spans about 97,000 light-years, close to the width of the Milky Way.
What astronomers have recorded
SIMBAD, the reference database astronomers use, classes it as an emission-line galaxy: its spectrum shows the glow of gas lit by young stars. Two supernovae have been recorded in it, the first in 2004; the most recent include SN 2004dk, SN 2020hvp. It is cited in 215 scientific papers indexed by SIMBAD, and recorded there under 24 different catalogue designations.
When this light set out
The light that reaches us from NGC 6118 today set out about 75 million years ago, when dinosaurs were at their peak. The galaxy is moving away from us at about 1,571 km/s (3.5 million mph), carried by the expansion of the universe.
Finding it in the sky
NGC 6118 lies in Serpens. It is best placed on summer evenings: around 9:30 pm in July it stands about 48° high in the south, seen from the middle of the United States.
By apparent size it is number 169 of the 12,657 galaxies on the Galaxy Origins register.
Measurements
| Catalogue | PGC 57924 |
|---|---|
| Morphological type | Sc |
| Angular diameter | 4.45′ |
| Right ascension | 16h21m48.6s |
| Declination | -02°17′00.4″ |
| Constellation | Serpens |
| Inclination | 68.7° |
| Light travel time | 75 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 4.4 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.
Take this galaxy — $1,290 Browse the Collection