{"release":{"id":"DR1","released_on":"2026-08-21","doi":null,"url":"https://spacecatalog.org/releases#dr1"},"epoch":{"requested":"now","label":"J2026.808","julian_year":2026.808,"time":"2026-10-23T00:46:14.690Z","years_from_j2000":26.808,"frame":"date","applied":"Proper motion, then precession and nutation. The catalogued position is carried along the great circle the object's own published motion puts it on, at a constant velocity, from the epoch that position was measured at, and the result is referred to the true equator and equinox of this instant. Those are separate things: the motion moves the object, and the rotation turns the grid under it by about fifty arcseconds a year, with nutation adding up to another seventeen.","excluded":"Parallax, the radial-velocity perspective term, aberration and refraction; each is below the accuracy of the catalogued positions themselves. An object with no published proper motion comes back where the catalogue has it rather than at a fabricated zero, and says so with a null pm_ra_mas_yr. The motion runs from position_epoch_jyear where the upstream publishes one — a timed pulsar's position belongs to the year it was timed — and from J2000 where it does not. A body with no fixed position is not propagated at all — its place comes from an ephemeris, which is what /api/v1/visible answers with."},"slug":"ngc-292","name":"Small Magellanic Cloud","class":"barred_spiral_galaxy_sbm","category":"galaxy","object_type":"Barred spiral galaxy SBm","mag":2.3,"mag_band":"V","abs_mag":null,"abs_mag_band":null,"distance_ly":203700,"distance_method":"literature value (curated)","ra_deg":13.186583333333333,"dec_deg":-72.8286111111111,"epoch_ra_deg":13.427744,"epoch_dec_deg":-72.682002,"epoch_moved_arcsec":null,"pm_ra_mas_yr":null,"pm_dec_mas_yr":null,"position_epoch_jyear":null,"orbits":null,"semi_major_axis_km":null,"periapsis_km":null,"mass_kg":null,"mass_msun":null,"constellation":"Tucana","discovered":"1521","featured":true,"url":"https://spacecatalog.org/object/ngc-292","source":{"id":"openngc","name":"OpenNGC","url":"https://github.com/mattiaverga/OpenNGC","license":"CC-BY-SA-4.0","attribution":"OpenNGC, Mattia Verga (github.com/mattiaverga/OpenNGC). Fields derived from it stay under CC BY-SA 4.0.","commercial_use":"allowed"},"radius_km":null,"radius_kind":null,"data_quality":null,"description":"The smaller of the two Magellanic Clouds, a dwarf galaxy being slowly pulled apart by its larger companion and the Milky Way. It is where Henrietta Leavitt found the Cepheid period–luminosity relation in 1908 — the discovery that first let astronomers measure distances to other galaxies.","properties":{"b_mag":2.75,"v_mag":2.3,"redshift":0.000486,"hubble_type":"SBm","wikidata_id":"Q49984","redshift_cmb":0.00030141338021838493,"also_known_as":["SMC"],"discovered_by":"Ferdinand Magellan","ngc_type_code":"G","major_axis_arcmin":299.92,"minor_axis_arcmin":179.89,"wikipedia_article":"Small Magellanic Cloud","position_angle_deg":45,"surface_brightness":23.42,"radial_velocity_km_s":146},"designations":[{"catalog":"Common name","designation":"Small Magellanic Cloud"},{"catalog":"ESO","designation":"ESO 029-021"},{"catalog":"ESO","designation":"ESO 29-21"},{"catalog":"LEDA","designation":"LEDA 3085"},{"catalog":"NGC","designation":"NGC 292"},{"catalog":"PGC","designation":"PGC 3085"}],"updated_at":"2026-10-01T09:42:28.932Z","attribution":"Data from SpaceCatalog.org. Each record names its upstream in `source`, with that producer's terms in `source.license`, the acknowledgement it asks for in `source.attribution`, and whether its terms allow commercial use in `source.commercial_use`; those terms govern the record, and citing SpaceCatalog does not discharge them."}