The Caldwell Objects

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Outer Limits Galaxy
NGC 891
Type: Spiral Galaxy (Sb)
Con: Andromeda
RA: 02 h 22.6 m
Dec: +42° 21'
Mag: 9.9
Dim: 12.2' x 3.0'
SB: 13.7
Dist: 31 million light-years
Disc: Caroline Herschel,
1784
W . H ERSCHEL:
[Observed 6 October 1784]
Considerably bright,
much extended, above 15'
long. 3' broad. A black
division 3' or 4' long in the
middle. (HV-19)
GC/NGC: Remarkable,
bright, very large, very
much extended toward
position angle 22°.
IN LONG EXPOSURES MADE WITH GREAT TELES-
copes, the edge-on spiral galaxy NGC 891 looks
like a flying saucer pitching sharply through a
city of suns. The galaxy's supernatural
appearance was naturally befitting for the
television series The Outer Limits, which fathered
the vast science-fiction genre we enjoy today. At
the close of the show's 1963 premiere episode,
"The Galaxy Being," images of galaxies (including
NGC 891, which impressed me most of all) ebbed
and flowed with the pulsing rhythm of the
show's haunting music. The episode's plot —
about an inventor who uses radio equipment to
turn "three dimensional static" into a pulsing
being
from a distant galaxy — captured the imaginations
of impressionable youngsters. More generally,
the show strove to give us an "altruistic
look at the awesome and mysterious universe."
To this day I wonder how many people of my
generation were turned on to astronomy by that
TV series. That's why I have nicknamed NGC 891
the Outer Limits Galaxy.
Its mystique notwithstanding, NGC 891 has
been well studied since Caroline Herschel
discovered it more than 200 years ago. It is tilted
a mere 6° from edge on. R. Brent Tully (University
of Hawaii) places the galaxy 31 million
light-years from Earth in the Triangulum Spur of
galaxies, whose 40 members include NGC
96 Deep-Sky Companions: The Caldwell Objects