NGC 1621
NGC 1621 is an elliptical galaxy in the constellation Eridanus about 209 million ly from Earth. It spans roughly 81,000 ly, about 81% of our Milky Way's width. The light reaching us tonight left it about 209 million years ago.
Illustration from its catalogued shape, not a photograph
Because its light is 209 million ly from home, you are seeing NGC 1621 as it looked roughly 209 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.
apartNGC 1604Lenticular4.4 million ly
apartNGC 1610Spiral7.0 million ly
apartNGC 1594Barred spiral8.5 million ly
apartNGC 1609Lenticular9.2 million ly
apartIC 387Spiral9.9 million ly
apart
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).