NGC 1 and NGC 2.

Beautiful nebulae , clusters , and galaxies that grace planet Earth's night sky are often known by their New General Catalog designation or NGC number . That classic listing was compiled by John Louis Emil Dreyer , remarkable director of the Armagh Observatory from 1882 to 1916. NGC 2266 is , for example, the 2,266th item in his New General Catalog of Nebulae and Clusters of Stars. Noting that “ every book has a first page”, modern day astronomer Jay GaBany wondered what NGC 1 might look like - and found it , along with NGC 2 in the constellation Pegasus. Pictured above, both are more or less typical-sized (50-100 thousand light-years across) spiral galaxies with estimated distances of over 150 million light-years for NGC 1 (top) and about twice that for NGC 2. NGC ordering is based on an astronomical coordinate system , so these otherwise unremarkable spirals appear first in the NGC listing because their location in the sky translates to the smallest Right Ascension coordinate in the catalog.