NGC 4183 — Sc in Canes Venatici
Sc in Canes Venatici, 4.3 arcminutes across, its light 44 million years old. Measured by HyperLEDA, photographed by Pan-STARRS1. Recorded once.
About NGC 4183
What you are looking at
NGC 4183 is a late-type spiral: a small central bulge and open, loosely wound arms full of young stars and star-forming gas. We see it almost exactly edge-on, so its whole disc appears as one thin band of light, with dust showing as a dark line along its length. From edge to edge its visible disc spans about 55,000 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 a member of a group of galaxies. One supernova has been recorded in it: SN 1968U. It is cited in 217 scientific papers indexed by SIMBAD, and recorded there under 15 different catalogue designations.
When this light set out
The light that reaches us from NGC 4183 today set out about 44 million years ago, when the planet had come through its hottest interval since the dinosaurs. The galaxy is moving away from us at about 920 km/s (2.1 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 4183 lies in Canes Venatici. It is best placed on spring evenings: around 9:30 pm in May it stands about 86° high in the north, close to overhead, 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: NGC 4138 (0.7° away on the sky, at least 530,000 light-years from it); UGC 7146 (0.8° away on the sky, at least 600,000 light-years from it); NGC 4117 (1.2° away on the sky, at least 890,000 light-years from it); NGC 4111 (1.3° away on the sky, at least 1,000,000 light-years from it), and 11 more.
By apparent size it is number 191 of the 12,657 galaxies on the Galaxy Origins register.
Measurements
| Catalogue | PGC 38988 |
|---|---|
| Morphological type | Sc |
| Angular diameter | 4.29′ |
| Right ascension | 12h13m16.9s |
| Declination | +43°41′54.6″ |
| Constellation | Canes Venatici |
| Inclination | 90.0° |
| Light travel time | 44 million years |
| Bar | not recorded |
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 4.3 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.
Take this galaxy — $1,290 Browse the Collection