The sky around NGC 3081 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 3081 is a ring galaxy (S0-a) in Hydra, 112 million light-years away
NGC 3081 (ESO 499-031, PGC 28876, IC 2529) is a ring galaxy (S0-a) in the constellation Hydra, 112 million light-years away. It shines at magnitude 12.9 and spans 2.7′ × 1.6′ of sky, about 88,200 light-years across. It is a telescope object, 6 inches or larger, and it is highest in the evening sky in April.
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 3081 is AM 957-223 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 957-223 is its position: right ascension 9h 57m and declination -22.3°.
Finding NGC 3081 from ν Hya
NGC 3081 lies 13.5° southwest of ν Hya, the magnitude 3.1 star. A fist held at arm's length covers about 10°.
NGC 3081 is highest in the evening in April
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 67°N, and never sets south of 67°S.
NGC 3081 is 112 million light-years away
The light seen from NGC 3081 tonight left it about 112 million years ago, long before modern humans existed. It ranks 233 of 422 by distance among the galaxies on Go Astronomy. Distance source: Hubble flow, cz=2410 km/s, H0=70.
Objects within 6° of NGC 3081
No other Messier, Caldwell or Herschel 400 object lies within 6°.
NGC 3081 catalog data
Field
Value
Designations
ESO 499-031, PGC 28876, IC 2529, NGC 3081, AM 957-223
