The sky around NGC 1569 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 1569 is a starburst galaxy (IB) in Camelopardalis, 10 million light-years away
NGC 1569 (PGC 15345, UGC 3056) is a starburst galaxy (IB) in the constellation Camelopardalis, 10 million light-years away. It shines at magnitude 11.1 and spans 3.6′ × 1.8′ of sky, about 10,900 light-years across. It is a telescope object, 6 inches or larger, and it is highest in the evening sky in January.
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.
NGC 1569 is Arp 210, one of Arp's galaxies with irregularities, absorption and resolution
Halton Arp photographed it for his Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies (1966) as field Arp 210. It is in his group of neither spiral nor elliptical, Arp 146 to 268, under the category Galaxies with irregularities, absorption and resolution.
NGC 1569 lies 19.9° north of Capella, the magnitude 0.1 star. A fist held at arm's length covers about 10°.
NGC 1569 is highest in the evening in January
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 25°S, and never sets north of 25°N.
NGC 1569 is 10 million light-years away
The light seen from NGC 1569 tonight left it about 10 million years ago, long before modern humans existed. It ranks 32 of 422 by distance among the galaxies on Go Astronomy. Distance source: TRGB, Tully 2009 EDD (via LVDB).
