NGC 6951 — SABb in Cepheus
SABb in Cepheus, 3.2 arcminutes across, its light 68 million years old. Measured by HyperLEDA, photographed by Pan-STARRS1. Recorded once.
About NGC 6951
What you are looking at
NGC 6951 is a spiral with a sizeable central bulge and well-defined arms, close in type to the Milky Way. A weak bar of stars crosses its centre. It is tilted about 51° to our line of sight, enough to show both the shape of its arms and the depth of its disc. From edge to edge its visible disc spans about 63,000 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 a Seyfert galaxy: its nucleus is lit by gas falling into its central black hole, though dust hides part of that glow from us. Four supernovae have been recorded in it, the first in 1999; the most recent include SN 2000E, SN 2020dpw, SN 2021sjt. It is cited in 559 scientific papers indexed by SIMBAD, and recorded there under 40 different catalogue designations.
When this light set out
Its light has been travelling for about 68 million years. When it left, dinosaurs were at their peak. The galaxy is moving away from us at about 1,425 km/s (3.2 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 6951 lies in Cepheus. From most of the United States it never sets: it circles the north celestial pole all year, and stands highest on autumn evenings, around September.
By apparent size it is number 453 of the 12,657 galaxies on the Galaxy Origins register.
Measurements
| Catalogue | PGC 65086 |
|---|---|
| Morphological type | SABb |
| Angular diameter | 3.19′ |
| Right ascension | 20h37m14.1s |
| Declination | +66°06′20.5″ |
| Constellation | Cepheus |
| Inclination | 50.8° |
| Light travel time | 68 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 3.2 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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