New General Catalogue

The New General Catalogue (NGC) is the most well-known catalogue of deep sky objects in amateur astronomy. It contains nearly 8,000 objects, known as the NGC objects. The NGC is one of the largest comprehensive catalogues, as it includes all types of deep sky objects (not specialised to just galaxies for instance).

The catalogue was compiled in the 1880s by J. L. E. Dreyer using observations mostly from William Herschel, and then subsequently expanded with two Index Catalogues (IC I & IC II), adding nearly 5,000 objects.

Objects in the southern sky are somewhat less well catalogued but many were observed by John Herschel. The NGC contained many errors which have for the most part been eliminated by the Revised NGC.

Objects in the NGC with articles in Wikipedia

• See List of NGC objects.

Spiral Galaxy NGC 3982 displays numerous spiral arms filled with bright stars, blue star clusters, and dark dust lanes. It spans about 30,000 light years, lies about 60 million light years from Earth and can be seen with a small telescope in the constellation of Ursa Major.

See also

• General Catalogue
• Index Catalogue
• Revised Index Catalogue
• Category:NGC objects
• Category:IC objects

External links

• The Interactive NGC Catalog, SEDS