NGC 4699 — SABb in Virgo
SABb in Virgo, 4.0 arcminutes across, its light 67 million years old. Measured by HyperLEDA, photographed by Pan-STARRS1. Recorded once.
About NGC 4699
What you are looking at
NGC 4699 is a spiral with a sizeable central bulge and well-defined arms, close in type to the Milky Way. A weak bar of stars crosses its centre. It is tilted about 42° to our line of sight, enough to show both the shape of its arms and the depth of its disc. From edge to edge its visible disc spans about 78,000 light-years (taking its redshift distance, which for a galaxy this near is approximate), about 79% of the Milky Way’s width.
What astronomers have recorded
SIMBAD, the reference database astronomers use, classes it as an emission-line galaxy: its spectrum shows the glow of gas lit by young stars. One supernova has been recorded in it: SN 1948A. It is cited in 229 scientific papers indexed by SIMBAD, and recorded there under 17 different catalogue designations.
When this light set out
Its light has been travelling for about 67 million years. When it left, dinosaurs were at their peak. The galaxy is moving away from us at about 1,395 km/s (3.1 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 4699 sits within the constellation Virgo. It is best placed on spring evenings: around 9:30 pm in May it stands about 41° 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 4674 (0.7° away on the sky, at least 860,000 light-years from it); NGC 4818 (1.9° away on the sky, at least 2,250,000 light-years from it); NGC 4790 (2.1° away on the sky, at least 2,500,000 light-years from it); IC 3908 (2.2° away on the sky, at least 2,550,000 light-years from it), and 6 more.
By apparent size it is number 240 of the 12,657 galaxies on the Galaxy Origins register.
Measurements
| Catalogue | PGC 43321 |
|---|---|
| Morphological type | SABb |
| Angular diameter | 3.99′ |
| Right ascension | 12h49m02.2s |
| Declination | -08°39′51.5″ |
| Constellation | Virgo |
| Inclination | 42.1° |
| Light travel time | 67 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 4.0 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.
Take this galaxy — $1,290 Browse the Collection