NGC 5907

NGC 5907 is an edge-on spiral galaxy in the constellation Dragon with an apparent magnitude of 10.4 mag. It can be found 2.9° south-southwest of the 3.3 mag bright star ι Draconis and about 1° north of the two 11.7 and 11.8 mag bright spiral galaxies NGC 5905 and NGC 5908, respectively, near the constellation Bear Keeper. NGC 5907 has an extent of 12.6' × 1.4', with almost no visible bulge. The galaxy is thus very slender and probably of the Hubble type Sc. NGC 5907 is probably a member of the galaxy group around NGC 5866, which is about 40 million light-years away from Earth. According to this distance and its angular extent, it has a diameter of about 150,000 light-years.

The galaxy was discovered on May 5, 1788 by the German-British astronomer Wilhelm Herschel. Its occasionally used English name Splinter Galaxy was coined by amateur astronomer Walter Scott Huston in 1970. The faint glow of the galaxy on the west side of the dark dust band of its disk was discovered on April 13, 1850, by George Johnstone Stoney, an assistant to Lord Rosse, and is listed as NGC 5906.

NGC 5907 group (LGG 396)