NGC 54
NGC 54 is a barred spiral galaxy in the constellation Cetus about 247 million ly from Earth. It spans roughly 97,000 ly, about the width of our Milky Way. The light reaching us tonight left it about 247 million years ago.
Illustration from its catalogued shape, not a photograph
Because its light is 247 million ly from home, you are seeing NGC 54 as it looked roughly 247 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 47Barred spiral22 million ly
apartIC 1490Spiral25 million ly
apartIC 3Elliptical30 million ly
apartNGC 195Spiral33 million ly
apartNGC 78ALenticular36 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).