NGC 974 — SABb in Triangulum
SABb in Triangulum, 3.2 arcminutes across, its light 215 million years old. Measured by HyperLEDA, photographed by Pan-STARRS1. Recorded once.
About NGC 974
What you are looking at
NGC 974 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 37° 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 198,000 light-years, about 2.0 times the width of the Milky Way.
What astronomers have recorded
SIMBAD, the reference database astronomers use, classes it as a member of a group of galaxies. One supernova has been recorded in it: SN 2017hju. Astronomers' catalogues record it under 14 different designations.
When this light set out
Its light has been travelling for about 215 million years. When it left, the first dinosaurs had appeared. The galaxy is moving away from us at about 4,500 km/s (10.1 million mph), carried by the expansion of the universe.
Finding it in the sky
NGC 974 lies in Triangulum. It is best placed on winter evenings: around 9:30 pm in December it stands about 83° 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 969 (4′ away on the sky, at least 230,000 light-years from it); UGC 2083 (0.5° away on the sky, at least 1,850,000 light-years from it); IC 1815 (0.5° away on the sky, at least 1,950,000 light-years from it); NGC 987 (0.6° away on the sky, at least 2,320,000 light-years from it), and 9 more.
By apparent size it is number 449 of the 12,657 galaxies on the Galaxy Origins register.
Measurements
| Catalogue | PGC 9802 |
|---|---|
| Morphological type | SABb |
| Angular diameter | 3.20′ |
| Right ascension | 02h34m25.8s |
| Declination | +32°57′16.0″ |
| Constellation | Triangulum |
| Inclination | 37.1° |
| Light travel time | 215 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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