Based on a recessional velocity of 1645 km/sec, about 75 million light years away. Given that and its apparent size of 1.4 by 0.75 arcmin, it is about 30 thousand light years across.

Per Dreyer, IC 2488 (= Bailey, 1860 RA 09 23 24, NPD 146 22) is a "cluster, coarse". The attribution to Solon Bailey is due to his observation of 1896, and the 1860 coordinates are presumably based on that observation; but Lacaille had recorded the cluster nearly a century and a half earlier (as his list III number 4), and is now given credit for the original discovery. The position precesses to RA 09 27 36.6, Dec -56 58 33, about an arcmin and a half east southeast of the position listed above, but well within the 15 arcmin diameter of the cluster, so the identification is certain. IC 2488 is about 4000 light years from the Sun, and 300 light years below the galactic plane (so it is well within the disc, though not centrally located). The turnoff point for its Main Sequence and the position of the red giant branch suggest an age of about 180 million years. Almost half the stars seen within the boundary of the cluster appear to be cluster members; the rest are foreground or background stars.

Based on a recessional velocity of 15055 km/sec, a straightforward calculation indicates that IC 2497 is 700 million light years away. However, for objects at this distance, we have to take the expansion of the Universe during the time that the light by which we see the galaxy was enroute. Doing that shows that the galaxy was about 660 million light years away when the light we now see was emitted, about 675 million years ago (the difference between the two numbers representing the expansion of the space between here and there during that time). Given that and its apparent size of 0.68 by 0.33 arcmin, it is about 130 thousand light years across. Just to the south of the galaxy is a strange region of glowing gas called Hanny's Voorwerp ("Hanny's Object" in Dutch), which is part of a 300 thousand light-year long tidally distorted extension of IC 2497. The lit portion, which is about 100 thousand light years across, is thought to be a light echo caused by a quasar-like "searchlight beam" from a black hole at the core of IC 2497, which was energized by an influx of material a few hundred thousand years or so ago (one suggestion is that a passing galaxy may have both distorted IC 2497, and provided the material to energize the quasar), then "turned off" when all the material had fallen through its event horizon. Regions at about the same distance (in light years) as the time since the quasar was lit up are seen brightly glowing, while regions closer to the galaxy or further away have either stopped glowing, or have yet to glow as the light of the quasar continues to spread throughout the gaseous extension. Hanny's Voorwerp was discovered by a Dutch schoolteacher in 2007, as part of the Galaxy Zoo project, in which members of the general public are encouraged to examine HST images, and see if they can find previously unnoticed oddities.