Silver Sliver Galaxy (NGC 891) — Sb in Andromeda
The Silver Sliver Galaxy (NGC 891) as a framed fine art print. Sb in Andromeda, 13.0 arcminutes across, its light 25 million years old. Measured by…
About Silver Sliver Galaxy (NGC 891)
NGC 891 is often described as the Milky Way seen from outside. It is a spiral of very similar size and type, and we see it exactly edge-on, so its disc appears as a silver sliver cut by a dark dust lane. Deep images show filaments of dust rising thousands of light-years above the disc, pushed out by exploding stars, and faint streams of stars in its halo left by small galaxies it has absorbed.
What you are looking at
The Silver Sliver Galaxy 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 96,000 light-years (taking its redshift distance, which for a galaxy this near is approximate), close to the width of the Milky Way.
What astronomers have recorded
SIMBAD, the reference database astronomers use, classes it as an HII galaxy, glowing with clouds of hydrogen lit by young stars. Patrick Moore listed it as Caldwell 23 in his 1995 catalogue of the finest deep-sky objects for amateur observers. One supernova has been recorded in it: SN 1986J. It is cited in 1,766 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 25 million years. When it left, Antarctica had begun to freeze. The galaxy is moving away from us at about 528 km/s (1.2 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
In the sky, the Silver Sliver Galaxy sits within the constellation Andromeda. It is best placed on winter evenings: around 9:30 pm in December it stands about 88° high in the north, close to overhead, 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 1807 (0.5° away on the sky, at least 210,000 light-years from it); UGC 2034 (2.8° away on the sky, at least 1,230,000 light-years from it).
By apparent size it is number 7 of the 12,657 galaxies on the Galaxy Origins register.
Measurements
| Catalogue | PGC 9031 |
|---|---|
| Morphological type | Sb |
| Angular diameter | 13.03′ |
| Right ascension | 02h22m33.5s |
| Declination | +42°20′51.5″ |
| Constellation | Andromeda |
| Inclination | 90.0° |
| Light travel time | 25 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 13.0 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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