NGC 1023 is a barred lenticular galaxy, a member of the NGC 1023 group of galaxies in the Local Supercluster. Distance measurements vary from 9.3 to 19.7 million parsecs (30 to 64 million light-years). The supermassive black hole at the core has a mass of (4.4±0.5)×107 M☉. The black hole was discovered by analyzing the dynamics of the galaxy. NGC 1023 is included in Halton Arp's Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies, under the category "Galaxies with Nearby Fragments" under the number 135.