NGC 1209

NGC 1209

NGC 1209 is an elliptical galaxy in the constellation Eridanus about 122 million ly from Earth. It spans roughly 80,000 ly, about 80% of our Milky Way's width. It is receding from us at about 2,614 km/s.

Illustration from its catalogued shape, not a photograph

Elliptical
type · E
122 million ly
from Earth · from redshift
80k ly
across
11.4
apparent magnitude
2,614 km/s
receding (RC3)

Because its light is 122 million ly from home, you are seeing NGC 1209 as it looked roughly 122 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 1190Lenticular1.5 million ly
apart
NGC 1189Spiral3.1 million ly
apart
NGC 1199Elliptical4.6 million ly
apart
NGC 1188Lenticular5.9 million ly
apart
NGC 1290Galaxy8.1 million ly
apart
NGC 1231Spiral11 million ly
apart
Worlds in the same direction on the sky

Source: structural data (position, morphology, brightness, redshift) from OpenNGC (CC BY-SA). Recession velocity from RC3 (de Vaucouleurs et al. 1991, via NASA/HEASARC, public domain). Distance computed by gravityfinder from redshift via Hubble's law (H0 = 70 km/s/Mpc).

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