NGC 3311
NGC 3311 is an elliptical galaxy in the constellation Hydra about 181 million ly from Earth. It spans roughly 140,000 ly, about the width of our Milky Way. It is receding from us at about 3,785 km/s.
Illustration from its catalogued shape, not a photograph
Because its light is 181 million ly from home, you are seeing NGC 3311 as it looked roughly 181 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 3307Lenticular4.2 million ly
apartNGC 3315Elliptical4.4 million ly
apartNGC 3305Elliptical5.7 million ly
apartNGC 3336Spiral6.1 million ly
apartNGC 3309Elliptical9.5 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).