NGC 6173

NGC 6173

NGC 6173 is an elliptical galaxy in the constellation Hercules about 410 million ly from Earth. It spans roughly 240,000 ly, about 2.4 times the width of our Milky Way. It is receding from us at about 8,771 km/s.

Illustration from its catalogued shape, not a photograph

Elliptical
type · E
410 million ly
from Earth · from redshift
242k ly
across
12.1
apparent magnitude
8,771 km/s
receding (RC3)

Because its light is 410 million ly from home, you are seeing NGC 6173 as it looked roughly 410 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 6150Elliptical6.2 million ly
apart
NGC 6175 NED01Barred spiral7.2 million ly
apart
NGC 6175 NED02Irregular7.2 million ly
apart
NGC 6147Spiral8.4 million ly
apart
NGC 6166BSpiral9.1 million ly
apart
NGC 6166CElliptical9.4 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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