The sky around Arp 293 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.
Arp 293 is a galaxy pair (Sb + S0-a) in Draco, 260 million light-years away
Arp 293 (NGC 6286, UGC 10647, PGC 59352, NGC 6285, PGC 59344) is a galaxy pair (Sb + S0-a) in the constellation Draco, 260 million light-years away. It shines at magnitude 12.1 and spans 1.2′ × 1.1′ of sky, about 90,800 light-years across. It is a telescope object, 6 inches or larger, and it is highest in the evening sky in July.
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.
Arp 293 is one of Arp's double galaxies with the appearance of wind effects
Halton Arp photographed it for his Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies (1966) as field Arp 293. It is in his group of double and multiple, Arp 269 to 332, under the category Double galaxies with the appearance of wind effects. The field holds 2 galaxies.
Arp 293 lies 5.0° southeast of Athebyne, the magnitude 2.7 star. Three fingers held at arm's length cover about 5°.
Arp 293 is highest in the evening in July
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 northern hemisphere and south to about 31°S, and never sets north of 31°N.
Arp 293 is 260 million light-years away
The light seen from Arp 293 tonight left it about 260 million years ago, long before modern humans existed. It ranks 332 of 422 by distance among the galaxies on Go Astronomy. Distance source: Hubble flow, cz=5579 km/s, H0=70.
Objects within 6° of Arp 293
No other Messier, Caldwell or Herschel 400 object lies within 6°.
Arp 293 catalog data
Field
Value
Designations
NGC 6286, UGC 10647, PGC 59352, NGC 6285, PGC 59344, Arp 293
