IC 4351 — Sb in Hydra
Sb in Hydra, 6.5 arcminutes across, its light 128 million years old. Measured by HyperLEDA, photographed by Pan-STARRS1. Recorded once.
About IC 4351
What you are looking at
IC 4351 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 243,000 light-years, about 2.5 times the width of the Milky Way.
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. One supernova has been recorded in it: SN 2020ad. It is cited in 123 scientific papers indexed by SIMBAD, and recorded there under 24 different catalogue designations.
When this light set out
What a telescope records of IC 4351 is light that left it about 128 million years ago; on Earth, the first flowering plants had appeared. The galaxy is moving away from us at about 2,673 km/s (6.0 million mph), carried by the expansion of the universe.
Finding it in the sky
IC 4351 lies in Hydra. It is best placed on spring evenings: around 9:30 pm in May it stands about 21° 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 4323 (2.9° away on the sky, at least 6,400,000 light-years from it).
By apparent size it is number 57 of the 12,657 galaxies on the Galaxy Origins register.
Measurements
| Catalogue | PGC 49676 |
|---|---|
| Morphological type | Sb |
| Angular diameter | 6.55′ |
| Right ascension | 13h57m54.2s |
| Declination | -29°18′56.5″ |
| Constellation | Hydra |
| Inclination | 90.0° |
| Light travel time | 128 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 6.5 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.
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