NGC 6340 — S0-a in Draco
S0-a in Draco, 3.0 arcminutes across, its light 58 million years old. Measured by HyperLEDA, photographed by Pan-STARRS1. Recorded once.
About NGC 6340
What you are looking at
NGC 6340 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 52,000 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 one of a pair of galaxies. It is cited in 198 scientific papers indexed by SIMBAD, and recorded there under 15 different catalogue designations.
When this light set out
The light that reaches us from NGC 6340 today set out about 58 million years ago, when an asteroid had ended the age of dinosaurs. The galaxy is moving away from us at about 1,215 km/s (2.7 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 6340 lies in 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 July.
Its neighbours
At almost the same distance from us, and so its neighbours in space as well as on the sky: IC 1251 (0.1° away on the sky, at least 110,000 light-years from it); UGC 10791 (0.3° away on the sky, at least 340,000 light-years from it); UGC 10713 (0.5° away on the sky, at least 470,000 light-years from it); UGC 10803 (1.2° away on the sky, at least 1,230,000 light-years from it), and 3 more.
By apparent size it is number 502 of the 12,657 galaxies on the Galaxy Origins register.
Measurements
| Catalogue | PGC 59742 |
|---|---|
| Morphological type | S0-a |
| Angular diameter | 3.04′ |
| Right ascension | 17h10m24.9s |
| Declination | +72°18′15.8″ |
| Constellation | Draco |
| Inclination | 19.9° |
| Light travel time | 58 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 3.0 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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