The sky around NGC 784 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 784 is a barred spiral galaxy (SBd) in Triangulum, 17 million light-years away
NGC 784 (PGC 7671, UGC 1501) is a barred spiral galaxy (SBd) in the constellation Triangulum, 17 million light-years away. It shines at magnitude 11.7 and spans 4.2′ × 1.1′ of sky, about 20,900 light-years across. It is a telescope object, 6 inches or larger, and it is highest in the evening sky in December.
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 784 from Mothallah
NGC 784 lies 1.9° east of Mothallah, the magnitude 3.4 star. That is within one binocular field.
NGC 784 is highest in the evening in December
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 61°S, and never sets north of 61°N.
NGC 784 is 17 million light-years away
The light seen from NGC 784 tonight left it about 17 million years ago, long before modern humans existed. It ranks 48 of 422 by distance among the galaxies on Go Astronomy. Distance source: Cosmicflows-4 (Tully et al. 2023).
Objects within 6° of NGC 784
No other Messier, Caldwell or Herschel 400 object lies within 6°.
