The sky around NGC 1 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.
NGC 1 is a spiral galaxy (Sb) in Pegasus, 232 million light-years away
NGC 1 (PGC 564, UGC 57) is a spiral galaxy (Sb) in the constellation Pegasus, 232 million light-years away. It shines at magnitude 12.9 and spans 1.6′ × 1.1′ of sky, about 108,100 light-years across. It is a telescope object, 6 inches or larger, and it is highest in the evening sky in November.
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.
Finding NGC 1 from Alpheratz
NGC 1 lies 1.4° south of Alpheratz, the magnitude 2.1 star. That is within one binocular field.
NGC 1 is highest in the evening in November
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 62°S, and never sets north of 62°N.
NGC 1 is 232 million light-years away
The light seen from NGC 1 tonight left it about 232 million years ago, long before modern humans existed. It ranks 326 of 422 by distance among the galaxies on Go Astronomy. Distance source: Cosmicflows-4 (Tully et al. 2023), Tully-Fisher.
Objects within 6° of NGC 1
No other Messier, Caldwell or Herschel 400 object lies within 6°.
