NGC 4357 — Sbc in Canes Venatici
Sbc in Canes Venatici, 3.5 arcminutes across, its light 197 million years old. Measured by HyperLEDA, photographed by Pan-STARRS1. Recorded once.
About NGC 4357
What you are looking at
NGC 4357 is a spiral of the same broad class astronomers give the Milky Way: a moderate bulge and clearly drawn arms. Its disc is steeply tilted, about 73° from face-on, so it appears as a long oval. From edge to edge its visible disc spans about 197,000 light-years, about 2.0 times the width of the Milky Way.
What astronomers have recorded
SIMBAD, the reference database astronomers use, classes it as a LINER galaxy: its nucleus shows the faint, low-level activity of a black hole feeding slowly. One supernova has been recorded in it: SN 1996B. It is cited in 77 scientific papers indexed by SIMBAD, and recorded there under 17 different catalogue designations.
When this light set out
The light that reaches us from NGC 4357 today set out about 197 million years ago, when dinosaurs had begun to dominate. The galaxy is moving away from us at about 4,122 km/s (9.2 million mph), carried by the expansion of the universe.
Finding it in the sky
NGC 4357 lies in Canes Venatici. It is best placed on spring evenings: around 9:30 pm in May it stands about 81° 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: UGC 7367 (1.3° away on the sky, at least 4,310,000 light-years from it).
By apparent size it is number 351 of the 12,657 galaxies on the Galaxy Origins register.
Measurements
| Catalogue | PGC 40296 |
|---|---|
| Morphological type | Sbc |
| Angular diameter | 3.48′ |
| Right ascension | 12h23m58.8s |
| Declination | +48°46′46.0″ |
| Constellation | Canes Venatici |
| Inclination | 73.3° |
| Light travel time | 197 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 3.5 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