NGC 4346 — S0 in Canes Venatici
S0 in Canes Venatici, 3.3 arcminutes across, its light 37 million years old. Measured by HyperLEDA, photographed by Pan-STARRS1. Recorded once.
About NGC 4346
What you are looking at
NGC 4346 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. 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 36,000 light-years (taking its redshift distance, which for a galaxy this near is approximate), about a third 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. It is cited in 124 scientific papers indexed by SIMBAD, and recorded there under 13 different catalogue designations.
When this light set out
Its light has been travelling for about 37 million years. When it left, the planet had come through its hottest interval since the dinosaurs. The galaxy is moving away from us at about 775 km/s (1.7 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 4346 lies in Canes Venatici. It is best placed on spring evenings: around 9:30 pm in May it stands about 83° 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: M106 (0.8° away on the sky, at least 540,000 light-years from it); NGC 4288 (0.9° away on the sky, at least 560,000 light-years from it); NGC 4248 (1.0° away on the sky, at least 680,000 light-years from it); UGC 7391 (1.2° away on the sky, at least 790,000 light-years from it), and 9 more.
By apparent size it is number 417 of the 12,657 galaxies on the Galaxy Origins register.
Measurements
| Catalogue | PGC 40228 |
|---|---|
| Morphological type | S0 |
| Angular diameter | 3.30′ |
| Right ascension | 12h23m27.9s |
| Declination | +46°59′37.7″ |
| Constellation | Canes Venatici |
| Inclination | 90.0° |
| Light travel time | 37 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 3.3 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.
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