NGC 6368 — Sb in Ophiucus
Sb in Ophiucus, 3.4 arcminutes across, its light 132 million years old. Measured by HyperLEDA, photographed by Pan-STARRS1. Recorded once.
About NGC 6368
What you are looking at
NGC 6368 is a spiral with a sizeable central bulge and well-defined arms, close in type to 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 132,000 light-years, about 1.3 times the width of the Milky Way.
What astronomers have recorded
It is cited in 63 scientific papers indexed by SIMBAD, and recorded there under 18 different catalogue designations.
When this light set out
The light that reaches us from NGC 6368 today set out about 132 million years ago, when the first birds had appeared. The galaxy is moving away from us at about 2,765 km/s (6.2 million mph), carried by the expansion of the universe.
Finding it in the sky
In the sky, NGC 6368 sits within the constellation Ophiucus. It is best placed on summer evenings: around 9:30 pm in July it stands about 62° 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: UGC 10841 (1.0° away on the sky, at least 2,350,000 light-years from it); UGC 10864 (2.6° away on the sky, at least 6,070,000 light-years from it).
By apparent size it is number 369 of the 12,657 galaxies on the Galaxy Origins register.
Measurements
| Catalogue | PGC 60315 |
|---|---|
| Morphological type | Sb |
| Angular diameter | 3.44′ |
| Right ascension | 17h27m11.5s |
| Declination | +11°32′37.0″ |
| Constellation | Ophiucus |
| Inclination | 90.0° |
| Light travel time | 132 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 3.4 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.
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