NGC 2403

Spiral Galaxy NGC 2403 (= H V.44), type Sc, in Camelopardalis

[NGC 2403 M. Purcell]
Right Ascension 7 : 36.9 (h:m)
Declination +65 : 36 (deg:m)
Distance 12000.0 (kly)
Visual Brightness 8.4 (mag)
Apparent Dimension 17.8 x 11.0 (arc min)

Discovered by William Herschel in 1788.

This beautiful spiral galaxy is an outlying member of the M81 group of galaxies, and thus about 12 million light years distant.

NGC 2403 is among the more conspicuous Northern objects which Charles Messier missed when compiling his catalog. Thus its discovery was left to William Herschel.

The image in this webpage was obtained by Michael Purcell.

One supernova has been recorded in this galaxy so far: Supernova 1954J, which was discovered by Zwicky (PASP 84, 844) on October 24, 1954. This supernova was situated 36E, 100N of the galaxy's nucleus and reached mag 16.0 in its maximum.

In the SAC 110 best NGC object list. No. 37 in the RASC Finest NGC Objects list. Caldwell 7 in Patrick Moore's list.

  • NED data of NGC 2403
  • SIMBAD Data of NGC 2403
  • Observing Reports for NGC 2403 (IAAC Netastrocatalog)

    Hartmut Frommert (spider@seds.org)
    Christine Kronberg (smil@lrz.uni-muenchen.de)

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    Last Modification: 29 Mar 1998, 12:55 MET