NGC 541

NGC 541

NGC 541 is an elliptical galaxy in the constellation Cetus about 253 million ly from Earth. It spans roughly 160,000 ly, about 1.6 times the width of our Milky Way. It is receding from us at about 5,415 km/s.

Illustration from its catalogued shape, not a photograph

Elliptical
type · E
253 million ly
from Earth · from redshift
159k ly
across
12.2
apparent magnitude
5,415 km/s
receding (RC3)

Because its light is 253 million ly from home, you are seeing NGC 541 as it looked roughly 253 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 548Elliptical1.5 million ly
apart
NGC 560Lenticular3.9 million ly
apart
NGC 547Elliptical3.9 million ly
apart
NGC 545Elliptical4.0 million ly
apart
NGC 538Barred spiral5.0 million ly
apart
NGC 519Elliptical5.3 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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