NGC 4597 — Sm in Virgo
Sm in Virgo, 3.5 arcminutes across, its light 50 million years old. Measured by HyperLEDA, photographed by Pan-STARRS1. Recorded once.
About NGC 4597
What you are looking at
NGC 4597 is a Magellanic spiral, a small, lopsided disc much like the Large Magellanic Cloud, with almost no central bulge. Its disc is turned almost exactly side-on to us: the galaxy appears as a narrow blade of light, and its dust as a dark seam running along it. From edge to edge its visible disc spans about 52,000 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 one of a pair of galaxies. It is cited in 97 scientific papers indexed by SIMBAD, and recorded there under 16 different catalogue designations.
When this light set out
The light that reaches us from NGC 4597 today set out about 50 million years ago, when the planet had come through its hottest interval since the dinosaurs. The galaxy is moving away from us at about 1,040 km/s (2.3 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
In the sky, NGC 4597 sits within the constellation Virgo. It is best placed on spring evenings: around 9:30 pm in May it stands about 44° 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: NGC 4546 (2.3° away on the sky, at least 2,030,000 light-years from it); NGC 4504 (2.6° away on the sky, at least 2,300,000 light-years from it).
By apparent size it is number 334 of the 12,657 galaxies on the Galaxy Origins register.
Measurements
| Catalogue | PGC 42429 |
|---|---|
| Morphological type | Sm |
| Angular diameter | 3.55′ |
| Right ascension | 12h40m12.9s |
| Declination | -05°47′56.6″ |
| Constellation | Virgo |
| Inclination | 90.0° |
| Light travel time | 50 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 3.5 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