IC 3608 — Sb in Virgo
Sb in Virgo, 3.4 arcminutes across, its light 344 million years old. Measured by HyperLEDA, photographed by Pan-STARRS1. Recorded once.
About IC 3608
What you are looking at
IC 3608 is a spiral with a sizeable central bulge and well-defined arms, close in type to the Milky Way. 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 332,000 light-years, about 3.4 times the width of the Milky Way.
What astronomers have recorded
It is cited in 68 scientific papers indexed by SIMBAD, and recorded there under 16 different catalogue designations.
When this light set out
The light that reaches us from IC 3608 today set out about 344 million years ago, when the great coal swamps were forming. The galaxy is moving away from us at about 7,273 km/s (16.3 million mph), carried by the expansion of the universe.
Finding it in the sky
IC 3608 lies in Virgo. It is best placed on spring evenings: around 9:30 pm in May it stands about 60° 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 816 (2.1° away on the sky, at least 12,480,000 light-years from it).
By apparent size it is number 404 of the 12,657 galaxies on the Galaxy Origins register.
Measurements
| Catalogue | PGC 42264 |
|---|---|
| Morphological type | Sb |
| Angular diameter | 3.35′ |
| Right ascension | 12h38m37.3s |
| Declination | +10°28′33.2″ |
| Constellation | Virgo |
| Inclination | 90.0° |
| Light travel time | 344 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 3.4 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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