NGC 1569 is a small irregular galaxy (Im) and is a small member of the IC 342 galaxy group, which in turn forms a sort of binary with the nearby Maffei galaxy group. The Maffei and IC342 galaxy groups are the nearest to our own local group of galaxies, both being only around 10 million light years away.
The dimensions of NGC 1569 are a little difficult to settle on because of the diffuse outer regions trailing off in various directions. The bright(ish) 9.74 magnitude G0 star BD+64 450 next to the galaxy (but close to us at "only" 900 light years away!) also somewhat interferes with the size measurement. I measure its size in this image at about 4.5 arc minutes by 2 arc minutes. Assuming a distance around 10 million light years, this puts this galaxies true size at around 13776 by 6122 light years at a minimum.
The galaxy is quite bright for its size and distance, coming in at a total magnitude of 11.03(V). The brightness seems to be due this being a starburst galaxy, which in Hubble images looks rather like a miniature version of M82. You can just see the reddish mottling of the intense Ha streamers seen in the NGC 1569 Hubble image data mixed in with the rest of the emission form the galaxy. A narrow band H-alpha filter would probably show them much better. Some random diffuse dust lanes can also be seen, along with numerous bluish star clusters rich in hot blue, short-lived O and B stars. Not surprisingly, given the intense star formation going on within this galaxy, no less than 40 definite and possible supernova remnants have been identified and listed in the SIMBAD database. SIMBAD data can be found at:
http://cdsportal.u-strasbg.fr/?target=NGC1569The five 8-minute exposures stacked for this image using Fitswork were each composed of 320 x 1.5 second subs live-stacked in SharpCap.
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