The sky around NGC 1792 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 1792 is a spiral galaxy (Sbc) in Columba, 53 million light-years away
NGC 1792 (ESO 305-000, ESO 305-006, PGC 16709) is a spiral galaxy (Sbc) in the constellation Columba, 53 million light-years away. It shines at magnitude 10.2 and spans 5.5′ × 2.8′ of sky, about 84,500 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 1792 is AM 503-380 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 503-380 is its position: right ascension 5h 03m and declination -38.0°. It ranks 26 by brightness among the 40 brightest objects in the list on this site.
Finding NGC 1792 from Phact
NGC 1792 lies 8.0° southwest of Phact, the magnitude 2.6 star. Three fingers held at arm's length cover about 5°.
NGC 1792 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 southern hemisphere and north to about 52°N, and never sets south of 52°S.
NGC 1792 is 53 million light-years away
The light seen from NGC 1792 tonight left it about 53 million years ago, long before modern humans existed. It ranks 106 of 422 by distance among the galaxies on Go Astronomy. Distance source: Flow model (NAM), Anand 2021 PHANGS.
