The sky around Eye of God 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.
Eye of God is a grand design spiral galaxy (SABc) in Eridanus, 78 million light-years away
Eye of God (NGC 1232, PGC 11819, ESO 547-014, Arp 41) is a grand design spiral galaxy (SABc) in the constellation Eridanus, 78 million light-years away. It shines at magnitude 10.1 and spans 6.8′ × 5.8′ of sky, about 154,500 light-years across. It is a telescope object, 6 inches or larger, and it is highest in the evening sky in December.
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.
Eye of God is Arp 41, one of Arp's spiral galaxies with low surface brightness companions
Halton Arp photographed it for his Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies (1966) as field Arp 41. It is in his group of spiral galaxies, Arp 1 to 101, under the category Spiral galaxies with low surface brightness companions. The field holds 2 galaxies.
Eye of God lies 13.5° southwest of Zaurak, the magnitude 3.0 star. A fist held at arm's length covers about 10°.
Eye of God is highest in the evening in December
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 69°N, and never sets south of 69°S.
Eye of God is 78 million light-years away
The light seen from Eye of God tonight left it about 78 million years ago, long before modern humans existed. It ranks 172 of 422 by distance among the galaxies on Go Astronomy. Distance source: Hubble flow, cz=1677 km/s, H0=70.
Objects within 6° of Eye of God
No other Messier, Caldwell or Herschel 400 object lies within 6°.
