H-NGC157
Galaxy in Cetus
About
In Cetus, NGC 157 is a spiral galaxy with a faint bar, tilted about 62° to our line of sight and roughly 90,000 light-years across. Distance estimates run from about 39 to 77 million light-years. It has few close neighbours, and supernovae were seen in it in 2009 and 2022.
Imaging tips
- Only 4–5′ across, so it is too small to frame: use a long focal length and a fine pixel scale.
- Faint at 22.6 mag/arcsec², so plan many hours of broadband data. One imager gathered 16 hours of LRGB, with 24 × 1200 s of luminance and 8 × 1200 s per colour channel.
- One imager stacked seven 6-minute frames from a Nikon D810A through a light-pollution filter.
- Best around September and October, but it peaks near 32° from 50°N.
Facts
- Size
- 5′ × 3′
- Magnitude
- 11.0
- Coordinates
- RA 0h 34.8m, Dec −8° 24′
- Framing, APS-C
- longer than 4000 mm
- Framing, full frame
- longer than 4000 mm
- Best months
- Sep, Oct
- Peak altitude
- 32° from 50°N, 47° from 35°N