NGC 55 is a fine example of an edge-on barred spiral galaxy located about 7 million light-years away in the constellation Sculptor. It was discovered by James Dunlop on August 4, 1826 and listed by him as Dunlop 507. It was later catalogued as h 2315 by John Herschel in 1847, and as GC 27 in the 1864 General Catalogue.
At magnitude 8.8, NGC 55 is the second brightest member of the Sculptor Group of galaxies. That group also includes NGC 55, NGC 253, NGC 300, and NGC 7793. The Sculptor Group is also known as the South Polar Group because of its position near the South Galactic Pole. NGC 55 is spindle shaped, a highly elongated 32.4 x 5.6 arc minutes in size, with a large extended core. The disk is mottled, with uneven bright areas.
Although usually regarded as a member of the Sculptor Group, NGC 55 is listed as a Local Group member by Mateo (1998), who gives a distance of only 5.4 million light-years. These recent distance measurements indicate that NGC 55 and NGC 300 actually lie in the foreground. It is likely that these two galaxies form a gravitationally bound pair.