The sky around NGC 1054 at true scale, north up and east left, with stars to magnitude 8 and the NGC and IC objects in the field. The circles show the field of a low-power eyepiece and of 10×50 binoculars.
NGC 1054 is a spiral galaxy in Aries, 466 million light-years away
NGC 1054 is a spiral galaxy in the constellation Aries, 466 million light-years away. It shines at magnitude 14.0 and spans 48″ × 26″ of sky, about 108,400 light-years across. It is faint: a 10-inch or larger telescope, or a camera, 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 1054 from Hamal
NGC 1054 lies 9.7° southeast of Hamal, the magnitude 2.0 star. A fist held at arm's length covers about 10°.
NGC 1054 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 72°S, and never sets north of 72°N.
NGC 1054 is 466 million light-years away
The light seen from NGC 1054 tonight left it about 466 million years ago, long before modern humans existed. Distance source: Cosmicflows-4 (Tully et al. 2023).
Objects within 6° of NGC 1054
52 NGC and IC objects lie within 6°. The nearest that are brighter than magnitude 12.5 or have their own page:
