NGC 7013 — Sa in Cygnus
Sa in Cygnus, 4.2 arcminutes across, its light 37 million years old. Measured by HyperLEDA, photographed by Pan-STARRS1. Recorded once.
About NGC 7013
What you are looking at
NGC 7013 is an early-type spiral: a large, bright central bulge wrapped in smooth, tightly wound arms. 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 45,000 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
It is cited in 145 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 7013 today set out about 37 million years ago, when the planet had come through its hottest interval since the dinosaurs. The galaxy is moving away from us at about 778 km/s (1.7 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
In the sky, NGC 7013 sits within the constellation Cygnus. It is best placed on autumn evenings: around 9:30 pm in September it stands about 80° high in the south, seen from the middle of the United States.
By apparent size it is number 216 of the 12,657 galaxies on the Galaxy Origins register.
Measurements
| Catalogue | PGC 66003 |
|---|---|
| Morphological type | Sa |
| Angular diameter | 4.16′ |
| Right ascension | 21h03m33.6s |
| Declination | +29°53′50.4″ |
| Constellation | Cygnus |
| Inclination | 90.0° |
| Light travel time | 37 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 4.2 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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