Distance
Distance estimates to NGC 5128 established since the 1980s typically range between 3-5 Mpc. Classical Cepheids discovered in the heavily-obscured dust lane of NGC 5128 yield a distance between ~3-3.5 Mpc, depending on the nature of the extinction law adopted and other considerations. Mira variables and Type II Cepheids were also discovered in NGC 5128, the latter being rarely detected beyond local group. The distance to NGC 5128 established from several indicators such as Mira variables and planetary nebulae favour a more distant value of ~3.8 Mpc.
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—D.H. (David Herbert)
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“Though there were numerous vessels at this great distance in the horizon on every side, yet the vast spaces between them, like the spaces between the stars,—far as they were distant from us, so were they from one another,—nay, some were twice as far from each other as from us,—impressed us with a sense of the immensity of the ocean, the “unfruitful ocean,” as it has been called, and we could see what proportion man and his works bear to the globe.”
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