NGC 6532 — Sc in Draco
Sc in Draco, 1.7 arcminutes across, its light 261 million years old. Measured by HyperLEDA, photographed by Pan-STARRS1. Recorded once.
About NGC 6532
What you are looking at
NGC 6532 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 70° from face-on, so it appears as a long oval. From edge to edge its visible disc spans about 127,000 light-years, about 1.3 times the width of the Milky Way.
What astronomers have recorded
Astronomers' catalogues record it under 13 different designations.
When this light set out
What a telescope records of NGC 6532 is light that left it about 261 million years ago; on Earth, the continents had joined into Pangaea. The galaxy is moving away from us at about 5,484 km/s (12.3 million mph), carried by the expansion of the universe.
Finding it in the sky
NGC 6532 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 1286 (2.5° away on the sky, at least 11,130,000 light-years from it).
By apparent size it is number 2,540 of the 12,657 galaxies on the Galaxy Origins register.
Measurements
| Catalogue | PGC 61220 |
|---|---|
| Morphological type | Sc |
| Angular diameter | 1.69′ |
| Right ascension | 17h59m13.9s |
| Declination | +56°13′54.2″ |
| Constellation | Draco |
| Inclination | 69.8° |
| Light travel time | 261 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 1.7 arcminutes this is a Collection galaxy, which is the tier where a real photograph shows its shape and how far it is tilted away from us. The tier comes from the measured diameter, not from a price list.
Take this galaxy — $590 Browse the Collection