NGC 7377 — S0-a in Aquarius
S0-a in Aquarius, 3.9 arcminutes across, its light 160 million years old. Measured by HyperLEDA, photographed by Pan-STARRS1. Recorded once.
About NGC 7377
What you are looking at
NGC 7377 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. It is tilted about 42° 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 181,000 light-years, about 1.8 times 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. It is cited in 106 scientific papers indexed by SIMBAD, and recorded there under 18 different catalogue designations.
When this light set out
Its light has been travelling for about 160 million years. When it left, Pangaea had begun to break apart. The galaxy is moving away from us at about 3,355 km/s (7.5 million mph), carried by the expansion of the universe.
Finding it in the sky
In the sky, NGC 7377 sits within the constellation Aquarius. It is best placed on autumn evenings: around 9:30 pm in October it stands about 28° 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: NGC 7359 (1.5° away on the sky, at least 4,280,000 light-years from it); NGC 7392 (1.9° away on the sky, at least 5,410,000 light-years from it); IC 5261 (2.5° away on the sky, at least 6,920,000 light-years from it).
By apparent size it is number 256 of the 12,657 galaxies on the Galaxy Origins register.
Measurements
| Catalogue | PGC 69733 |
|---|---|
| Morphological type | S0-a |
| Angular diameter | 3.89′ |
| Right ascension | 22h47m47.5s |
| Declination | -22°18′43.5″ |
| Constellation | Aquarius |
| Inclination | 41.9° |
| Light travel time | 160 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 3.9 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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