IC 1087
IC 1087
IC 1087 is a spiral galaxy in the constellation Virgo about 489 million ly from Earth. It spans roughly 110,000 ly, about the width of our Milky Way. The light reaching us tonight left it about 489 million years ago.
Illustration from its catalogued shape, not a photograph
Spiral
type · Sa
489 million ly
from Earth · from redshift
105k ly
across
15.5
apparent magnitude
Because its light is 489 million ly from home, you are seeing IC 1087 as it looked roughly 489 million years ago. The photons left before that much of history had passed, and are only now reaching us. This distance is estimated from the galaxy's redshift, so the lookback time is approximate.
Nearest galaxies
NGC 5855Elliptical15 million ly
apartNGC 5814Spiral22 million ly
apartIC 1105Spiral25 million ly
apartIC 1072Elliptical28 million ly
apartNGC 5911Elliptical38 million ly
apartNGC 5847Barred spiral40 million ly
apart
Worlds in the same direction on the sky→apartNGC 5814Spiral22 million ly
apartIC 1105Spiral25 million ly
apartIC 1072Elliptical28 million ly
apartNGC 5911Elliptical38 million ly
apartNGC 5847Barred spiral40 million ly
apart
Source: structural data (position, morphology, brightness, redshift) from OpenNGC (CC BY-SA). Distance computed by gravityfinder from redshift via Hubble's law (H0 = 70 km/s/Mpc).