NGC 45

NGC 45 is a low surface brightness spiral galaxy in the equatorial constellation of Cetus. It was discovered by the English astronomer John Herschel on 11 November 1835. The galaxy is located at a distance of 22 million light years and is receding with a heliocentric radial velocity of. It is located in the vicinity of the Sculptor Group, but is most likely a background galaxy.
The morphological class of NGC 45 is SAdm, indicating this is a spiral galaxy with no prominent inner bar or ring feature. There is no central bulge to speak of. The galactic plane is inclined at an angle of to the line of sight from the Earth, with the major axis of the elliptical profile being aligned along a position angle of. Star formation is proceeding at a modest rate of ·yr⁻¹.
Unlike the Milky Way, NGC 45 has no clearly defined spiral arms, and its center bar nucleus is also very small and distorted. NGC 45 thus does not have a galactic habitable zone. For the Milky Way, the galactic habitable zone is commonly believed to be an annulus with an outer radius of about 10 kiloparsecs and an inner radius close to the Galactic Center, both of which lack hard boundaries.

Astronomical Transients

Two astronomical transients have been observed in NGC45.

AT2018bwo was discovered by the Distance Less Than 40 Mpc Survey on 22 May 2018. Luminous red novae are thought to be the result of stars merging. The progenitor of AT2018bwo was a yellow supergiant star.
AT2018htr was discovered by DLT40 on 3 November 2018.