IC 268
IC 268
IC 268 is a spiral galaxy in the constellation Eridanus about 453 million ly from Earth. It spans roughly 130,000 ly, about the width of our Milky Way. The light reaching us tonight left it about 453 million years ago.
Illustration from its catalogued shape, not a photograph
Spiral
type · SABa
453 million ly
from Earth · from redshift
128k ly
across
15.3
apparent magnitude
Because its light is 453 million ly from home, you are seeing IC 268 as it looked roughly 453 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 1180Elliptical19 million ly
apartNGC 1181Barred spiral20 million ly
apartNGC 1192Elliptical20 million ly
apartNGC 1203AElliptical21 million ly
apartNGC 1191Elliptical22 million ly
apartNGC 1151Elliptical29 million ly
apart
Worlds in the same direction on the sky→apartNGC 1181Barred spiral20 million ly
apartNGC 1192Elliptical20 million ly
apartNGC 1203AElliptical21 million ly
apartNGC 1191Elliptical22 million ly
apartNGC 1151Elliptical29 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).