The sky around NGC 7029 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 7029 is an elliptical galaxy (E) in Indus, 118 million light-years away
NGC 7029 (ESO 235-072, PGC 66318) is an elliptical galaxy (E) in the constellation Indus, 118 million light-years away. It shines at magnitude 11.7 and spans 2.8′ × 1.6′ of sky, about 95,900 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.
NGC 7029 is AM 2108-492 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 2108-492 is its position: right ascension 21h 08m and declination -49.2°.
Finding NGC 7029 from α Ind
NGC 7029 lies 6.0° east of α Ind, the magnitude 3.1 star. Three fingers held at arm's length cover about 5°.
NGC 7029 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 41°N, and never sets south of 41°S.
NGC 7029 is 118 million light-years away
The light seen from NGC 7029 tonight left it about 118 million years ago, long before modern humans existed. It ranks 238 of 422 by distance among the galaxies on Go Astronomy. Distance source: Cosmicflows-4 (Tully et al. 2023).
Objects within 6° of NGC 7029
No other Messier, Caldwell or Herschel 400 object lies within 6°.
