NGC 3596 — SABc in Leo
SABc in Leo, 3.6 arcminutes across, its light 57 million years old. Measured by HyperLEDA, photographed by Pan-STARRS1. Recorded once.
About NGC 3596
What you are looking at
NGC 3596 is a late-type spiral: a small central bulge and open, loosely wound arms full of young stars and star-forming gas. A weak bar of stars crosses its centre. We look down on it almost face-on, so its structure is laid out as if on a map. From edge to edge its visible disc spans about 61,000 light-years (taking its redshift distance, which for a galaxy this near is approximate), about half the width of the Milky Way.
What astronomers have recorded
SIMBAD, the reference database astronomers use, classes it as an HII galaxy, glowing with clouds of hydrogen lit by young stars. It is cited in 230 scientific papers indexed by SIMBAD, and recorded there under 19 different catalogue designations.
When this light set out
What a telescope records of NGC 3596 is light that left it about 57 million years ago; on Earth, an asteroid had ended the age of dinosaurs. The galaxy is moving away from us at about 1,192 km/s (2.7 million mph), carried by the expansion of the universe. For a galaxy this close, its own motion through space is a large share of that speed, so the distance worked out from it is approximate; distances measured from individual stars in it can differ.
Finding it in the sky
NGC 3596 lies in Leo. It is best placed on spring evenings: around 9:30 pm in April it stands about 65° high in the south, seen from the middle of the United States.
Its neighbours
At almost the same distance from us, and so its neighbours in space as well as on the sky: Hamburger Galaxy (1.7° away on the sky, at least 1,730,000 light-years from it); NGC 3592 (2.5° away on the sky, at least 2,470,000 light-years from it); NGC 3655 (2.6° away on the sky, at least 2,600,000 light-years from it).
By apparent size it is number 303 of the 12,657 galaxies on the Galaxy Origins register.
Measurements
| Catalogue | PGC 34298 |
|---|---|
| Morphological type | SABc |
| Angular diameter | 3.64′ |
| Right ascension | 11h15m06.2s |
| Declination | +14°47′13.4″ |
| Constellation | Leo |
| Inclination | 18.7° |
| Light travel time | 57 million years |
| Bar | yes, from the catalogue |
Check every figure above in the NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database
What is sold
A print of this galaxy and the record of the calculation, once. When it sells it leaves the register and is not offered again. We assign no names and no ownership — nobody can sell you those.
At 3.6 arcminutes this is a Exceptional galaxy, which is the tier where a real photograph shows clear structure and dust lanes. The tier comes from the measured diameter, not from a price list.
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