This object, also known as Caldwell 51, is an
irregular local dwarf galaxy located only 2.5 million light years away in the constellation of Cetus at a declination of +2 degrees. This unusual object is the most challenging object to see in the Caldwell catalog. It is a member of our Local Group, a collection of 50 galaxies that includes the Milky Way. This galaxy is about the same distance away from earth as the Andromeda Galaxy, but in a different direction. It is similar in structure to the Magellanic Clouds.
This magnitude 9.9 galaxy spans 13 arc-minutes in our apparent view, which corresponds to a diameter of only 10,000 light years. I find it interesting the this galaxy is in the top 20 largest galaxies in the sky in terms of apparent size to us, being almost half the size of our moon. Even more surprising, it is in the top 40 brightest galaxies in terms of magnitude.
This galaxy is unusual for a number of reasons - no disk, little dust, and some stars that appear to be able to be resolved, which is unusual for another galaxy. Ha regions, blue stars, orange stars, and bluish star clusters all are visible in the image.
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