NGC 4781 — Scd in Virgo
Scd in Virgo, 3.7 arcminutes across, its light 61 million years old. Measured by HyperLEDA, photographed by Pan-STARRS1. Recorded once.
About NGC 4781
What you are looking at
NGC 4781 is a late-type spiral: a small central bulge and open, loosely wound arms full of young stars and star-forming gas. Its disc is steeply tilted, about 68° from face-on, so it appears as a long oval. From edge to edge its visible disc spans about 65,000 light-years (taking its redshift distance, which for a galaxy this near is approximate), about 67% of the Milky Way’s width.
What astronomers have recorded
SIMBAD, the reference database astronomers use, classes it as a Seyfert galaxy: its nucleus is lit by gas falling into its central black hole, though dust hides part of that glow from us. It is cited in 173 scientific papers indexed by SIMBAD, and recorded there under 22 different catalogue designations.
When this light set out
The light that reaches us from NGC 4781 today set out about 61 million years ago, when an asteroid had ended the age of dinosaurs. The galaxy is moving away from us at about 1,262 km/s (2.8 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 4781 lies in Virgo. It is best placed on spring evenings: around 9:30 pm in May it stands about 39° 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 4784 (6′ away on the sky, at least 100,000 light-years from it); NGC 4790 (0.3° away on the sky, at least 330,000 light-years from it); NGC 4802 (1.6° away on the sky, at least 1,650,000 light-years from it); NGC 4700 (1.6° away on the sky, at least 1,650,000 light-years from it), and 6 more.
By apparent size it is number 290 of the 12,657 galaxies on the Galaxy Origins register.
Measurements
| Catalogue | PGC 43902 |
|---|---|
| Morphological type | Scd |
| Angular diameter | 3.71′ |
| Right ascension | 12h54m23.7s |
| Declination | -10°32′13.9″ |
| Constellation | Virgo |
| Inclination | 67.7° |
| Light travel time | 61 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 3.7 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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