NGC 1232

NGC 1232 is an intermediate spiral galaxy about 60 million light-years away in the constellation Eridanus. It was discovered by German-British astronomer William Herschel on 20 October 1784.

It is dominated by millions of bright stars and dark dust, in spiral arms rotating about the center. Open clusters containing bright blue stars are sprinkled along these spiral arms, with dark lanes of dense interstellar dust between. Less visible are dim normal stars and interstellar gas, producing such high mass that they dominate the dynamics of the inner galaxy. Not visible is matter of unknown form called dark matter, needed to explain the motions of the visible material in the outer galaxy. The galaxy is approximately 200,000 light-years across, in between the sizes of the Andromeda Galaxy and our home galaxy, the Milky Way.

NGC 1232 and its satellite are part of the Eridanus cluster of galaxies, along with NGC 1300.

NGC 1232A is a satellite galaxy of NGC 1232. It is thought to be the cause of unusual bending in the spiral arms. In 1988, NGC 1232A was estimated to be 68 million light-years away while NGC 1232 was estimated to be 65 million light-years away.

Data from El Sauce, Chile 17” Planewave CDK from Martin Pugh’s online telescope.

LRGB - Lum-460m,Red-280m,Green-240min,Blue-300m