The sky around Le Gentil at true scale, north up and east left, with stars to magnitude 8. The circles show the field of a low-power eyepiece and of 10×50 binoculars.
Le Gentil is a dwarf elliptical galaxy in Andromeda, 2.5 million light-years away
Le Gentil (M32, NGC 221, Arp 168, PGC 002555, UGC 00452) is a dwarf elliptical galaxy in the constellation Andromeda, 2.5 million light-years away. It shines at magnitude 8.1 and spans 8.7′ × 6.5′ of sky, about 6,380 light-years across. It is an easy target in binoculars, and it is highest in the evening sky in November.
Galaxy: a system of billions of stars, gas and dust held together by gravity, far outside the Milky Way. Spiral galaxies have a disk with arms; elliptical galaxies are smooth, round or oval swarms of older stars.
Le Gentil is Arp 168, one of Arp's galaxies with diffuse counter-tails
Halton Arp photographed it for his Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies (1966) as field Arp 168. It is in his group of neither spiral nor elliptical, Arp 146 to 268, under the category Galaxies with diffuse counter-tails.
Le Gentil lies 7.5° northwest of Mirach, the magnitude 2.1 star. Three fingers held at arm's length cover about 5°.
Le Gentil is highest in the evening in November
The chart gives its height above the horizon at 9 pm through the year, from 60°N to 40°S. It can be seen from the whole northern hemisphere and south to about 49°S, and never sets north of 49°N.
Le Gentil is 2.5 million light-years away
The light seen from Le Gentil tonight left it about 2.5 million years ago, long before modern humans existed. It ranks 71 of 109 by distance among the 110 Messier objects. Distance source: LVDB, Savino 2022.
