NGC 442 is a spiral galaxy of type S0/a? (edge on) located in the constellation Cetus. Lewis Swift discovered it on October 21, 1886. Dreyer first described it as "very faint, small, round, bright star to southeast." The star is actually located northeast of NGC 442, but, due to the way optical telescopes worked, it was not unusual for some confusion of directions to occur.^[2]

NGC 442
SDSS view of NGC 442
Observation data (J2000 epoch)
Constellation	Cetus
Right ascension	01h 14m 38.6s[1]
Declination	−01° 01′ 14″[1]
Redshift	0.018640[1]
Heliocentric radial velocity	5,588 km/s[1]
Distance	261.58 Mly (80.200 Mpc)[1]
Apparent magnitude (V)	14.45[1]
Absolute magnitude (V)	-22.42[1]
Characteristics
Type	S0/a? (edge on)[1]
Apparent size (V)	1.0' × 0.5'[1]
Other designations
UGC 00789, CGCG 385-041, MCG +00-04-054, 2MASX J01143863-0101139, 2MASXi J0114385-010113, 6dF J0114385-010114, 6dFGSv 00692, PGC 4484.[1]