The sky around AM 1427-340 at true scale, north up and east left, with stars to magnitude 8. The circles show the field of a low-power eyepiece and of 10×50 binoculars.
AM 1427-340 is a peculiar galaxy in Centaurus, 142 million light-years away
AM 1427-340 (ESO 385-G033, PGC 51822) is a peculiar galaxy in the constellation Centaurus, 142 million light-years away. It shines at magnitude 13.3 and spans 2.3′ × 1.8′ of sky, about 95,000 light-years across. It is a telescope object, 6 inches or larger, and it is highest in the evening sky in June.
Galaxy: a system of billions of stars, gas and dust held together by gravity, far outside the Milky Way. Spiral galaxies have a disk with arms; elliptical galaxies are smooth, round or oval swarms of older stars.
AM 1427-340 is AM 1427-340 in the Arp-Madore catalog
Halton Arp and Barry Madore listed it in A Catalogue of Southern Peculiar Galaxies and Associations (1987), from their search of the UK Schmidt southern sky survey plates. The number 1427-340 is its position: right ascension 14h 27m and declination -34.0°.
Finding AM 1427-340 from Menkent
AM 1427-340 lies 5.3° east of Menkent, the magnitude 2.1 star. Three fingers held at arm's length cover about 5°.
AM 1427-340 is highest in the evening in June
The chart gives its height above the horizon at 9 pm through the year, from 60°N to 40°S. It can be seen from the whole southern hemisphere and north to about 56°N, and never sets south of 56°S.
AM 1427-340 is 142 million light-years away
The light seen from AM 1427-340 tonight left it about 142 million years ago, long before modern humans existed. It ranks 340 of 490 by distance among the Arp-Madore galaxies on Go Astronomy with a measured distance. Distance source: Hubble flow, z=0.01019 (2M++), comoving, H0=70.
