NGC 4526 — S0 in Virgo
S0 in Virgo, 7.0 arcminutes across, its light 28 million years old. Measured by HyperLEDA, photographed by Pan-STARRS1. Recorded once.
About NGC 4526
NGC 4526 is a lenticular galaxy in Virgo with a disc of dust around its centre. A bright supernova, SN 1994D, appeared in it in 1994 and became one of the most studied supernovae of its kind.
What you are looking at
NGC 4526 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 56,000 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 cluster of galaxies. Two supernovae have been recorded in it, the first in 1969; the most recent include SN 1969E, SN 1994D. It is cited in 718 scientific papers indexed by SIMBAD, and recorded there under 35 different catalogue designations.
When this light set out
The light that reaches us from NGC 4526 today set out about 28 million years ago, when Antarctica had begun to freeze. The galaxy is moving away from us at about 577 km/s (1.3 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 4526 lies in Virgo. It is best placed on spring evenings: around 9:30 pm in May it stands about 58° high in the south, seen from the middle of the United States.
Its neighbours
It lies in the direction of the Virgo Cluster and at a matching speed, which places it among the cluster’s more than a thousand galaxies, the nearest large cluster to the Milky Way. At almost the same distance from us, and so its neighbours in space as well as on the sky: UGC 7688 (0.5° away on the sky, at least 250,000 light-years from it); IC 3521 (0.6° away on the sky, at least 270,000 light-years from it); UGC 7636 (1.0° away on the sky, at least 500,000 light-years from it); IC 3517 (1.5° away on the sky, at least 710,000 light-years from it), and 12 more.
By apparent size it is number 47 of the 12,657 galaxies on the Galaxy Origins register.
Measurements
| Catalogue | PGC 41772 |
|---|---|
| Morphological type | S0 |
| Angular diameter | 6.95′ |
| Right ascension | 12h34m03.0s |
| Declination | +07°41′57.3″ |
| Constellation | Virgo |
| Inclination | 90.0° |
| Light travel time | 28 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 7.0 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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