NGC 247 Claw Galaxy

NGC 247

NGC 247, also known as Caldwell 62 and popularly nicknamed the Needle's Eye Galaxy or Claw Galaxy, is an intermediate spiral galaxy located approximately 11.1 million light-years away in the constellation Cetus. It is a member of the Sculptor Group, the nearest group of galaxies to our Local Group.

The galaxy spans about 70,000 light-years in diameter and is notable for an unusually large void on one side of its disk. This region contains older, redder stars but lacks younger, bluer stars, suggesting suppressed star formation for over a billion years—possibly due to a past interaction with a dark subhalo.

NGC 247 is gravitationally bound to the Sculptor Galaxy (NGC 253, below), forming a core within the Sculptor Group. It also hosts ultradense H II regions and a candidate supersoft ultraluminous X-ray source, potentially indicating an intermediate-mass black hole.

Captured on Vespera II over almost 5 hours and edited in PixInsight.

NGC 253