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NGC 503

Galaxy in the constellation Pisces

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NGC 503, also occasionally referred to as PGC 5086 or GC 5169, is an elliptical galaxy in the constellation Pisces. It is located approximately 265 million light-years from the Solar System and was discovered on 13 August 1863 by German astronomer Heinrich Louis d'Arrest.

01Observation history

Arrest discovered NGC 503 using an 11" reflecting telescope in Copenhagen. His position matches perfectly with PGC 5086. At the time of discovery, he considered the possibility of having observed one of William Herschels discoveries (NGC 495, 496, 499). John Louis Emil Dreyer, creator of the New General Catalogue, described the galaxy as "extremely faint, extremely small" with a "double star 4 arcmin to southwest".

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Sources and credits

This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article NGC 503, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.

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