NGC 945

NGC 945 is a barred spiral galaxy in the constellation Cetus, located south of the celestial equator. It is estimated to be 200 million light-years from the Milky Way, and about 135,000 light-years in diameter. The object was discovered by astronomer William Herschel on November 28, 1785. It is near NGC 948, with which it forms a gravitationally bound pair of galaxies. In the same area of the sky there are the galaxies NGC 942, NGC 943, NGC 950, and IC 230.

NGC 948

NGC 948 is a spiral galaxy located extremely close to NGC 945. Its speed relative to the cosmic microwave background is 4,259 ± 17 km/s, which corresponds to a Hubble distance of 62.8 ± 4.4 Mpc. NGC 948 was discovered by American astronomer Lewis Swift in 1886. The luminosity class of NGC 948 is III and it has a broad HI line. With a surface brightness equal to 14.17 mag/am2, NGC 948 is classified as a low surface brightness galaxy.

Supernovae

Two supernovae have been observed in NGC 945:SN1998dt was discovered by T. Shefler of the University of California at Berkeley on 1 September 1998, as part of the LOSS program at the Lick observatory.SN2020obd was discovered by ATLAS on 6 July 2020.

NGC 945 group

NGC 945 is the brightest galaxy in a group of at least 7 members that bears its name. The other six galaxies in the NGC 945 group are NGC 948, NGC 950, NGC 977, MCG -2-7-20, MCG -2-7-32 and MCG -2-7-337.