NGC 4106 — S0-a in Hydra
S0-a in Hydra, 4.1 arcminutes across, its light 103 million years old. Measured by HyperLEDA, photographed by Pan-STARRS1. Recorded once.
About NGC 4106
What you are looking at
NGC 4106 is a lenticular galaxy: a disc galaxy that has largely used up the gas it needs to form new stars, so its disc is smooth and has no spiral arms. It is tilted about 34° to our line of sight, enough to show both the shape of its arms and the depth of its disc. From edge to edge its visible disc spans about 124,000 light-years, about 1.3 times the width of the Milky Way.
What astronomers have recorded
SIMBAD, the reference database astronomers use, classes it as one of a pair of galaxies. It is cited in 76 scientific papers indexed by SIMBAD, and recorded there under 7 different catalogue designations.
When this light set out
What a telescope records of NGC 4106 is light that left it about 103 million years ago; on Earth, the first flowering plants had appeared. The galaxy is moving away from us at about 2,158 km/s (4.8 million mph), carried by the expansion of the universe.
Finding it in the sky
In the sky, NGC 4106 sits within the constellation Hydra. It is best placed on spring evenings: around 9:30 pm in April it stands about 20° 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: IC 2996 (0.3° away on the sky, at least 520,000 light-years from it); IC 760 (0.5° away on the sky, at least 920,000 light-years from it); IC 764 (0.8° away on the sky, at least 1,360,000 light-years from it); IC 2995 (1.8° away on the sky, at least 3,310,000 light-years from it).
By apparent size it is number 221 of the 12,657 galaxies on the Galaxy Origins register.
Measurements
| Catalogue | PGC 38417 |
|---|---|
| Morphological type | S0-a |
| Angular diameter | 4.14′ |
| Right ascension | 12h06m44.9s |
| Declination | -29°46′05.6″ |
| Constellation | Hydra |
| Inclination | 34.4° |
| Light travel time | 103 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 4.1 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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