NGC 147

RA:

00 : 33.2

Dec:

+48 : 31

Type:

dE5 pec

RV:

+ 89

Distance:

2400 kly

Apparent Dimension:

15.0 x 9.4 arc min

Diameter:

10500 ly

Brightness:

9.5 m_vis

Abs. Mag:

-15.5 Mag vis

Mass:

NGC 147 was discovered by John Herschel in 1829; he numbered it h 29 in his catalog of 1833, and GC 72 in his General Catalogue of 1864. Dreyer, in his NGC, describes this object as very faint, very large, irregularly round, gradually suddenly much brighter middle, star of 11th mag nearby.

NGC 147 was recognized as a Local Group member galaxy, together with its neighbor NGC 185, by Walter Baade (1944), when he resolved them into stars with the 100-inch reflector on Mt. Wilson. These two dwarf elliptical galaxies apparently form a physical pair, as they are only 58 arc minutes separated. Both are more remote satellite galaxies of the Andromeda Galaxy M31, and currently somewhat closer to us than this galaxy.

The distance of NGC 147 is given at values which adjusted for our scale, correspond to about 2.4 million light-years (van den Bergh); Mike Irwin's value corresponds to 2.2, Mateo's to almost 2.8 million light-years.