NGC 31
NGC 31 is a spiral galaxy in the constellation Phoenix about 447 million ly from Earth. It spans roughly 150,000 ly, about 1.5 times the width of our Milky Way. The light reaching us tonight left it about 447 million years ago.
Illustration from its catalogued shape, not a photograph
Because its light is 447 million ly from home, you are seeing NGC 31 as it looked roughly 447 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 28Elliptical1.8 million ly
apartNGC 37Lenticular8.1 million ly
apartNGC 7652Spiral54 million ly
apartNGC 159Lenticular57 million ly
apartNGC 212Elliptical66 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).