The sky around NGC 6861 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 6861 is a ring galaxy (E-S0) in Telescopium, 100 million light-years away
NGC 6861 (ESO 233-032, PGC 64136) is a ring galaxy (E-S0) in the constellation Telescopium, 100 million light-years away. It shines at magnitude 11.0 and spans 3.2′ × 2.4′ of sky, about 92,700 light-years across. It is a telescope object, 6 inches or larger, and it is highest in the evening sky in September.
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 6861 from α Ind
NGC 6861 lies 5.2° west of α Ind, the magnitude 3.1 star. Three fingers held at arm's length cover about 5°.
NGC 6861 is highest in the evening in September
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 42°N, and never sets south of 42°S.
NGC 6861 is 100 million light-years away
The light seen from NGC 6861 tonight left it about 100 million years ago, long before modern humans existed. It ranks 213 of 422 by distance among the galaxies on Go Astronomy. Distance source: Cosmicflows-4 (Tully et al. 2023).
Objects within 6° of NGC 6861
No other Messier, Caldwell or Herschel 400 object lies within 6°.
