NGC 5746 — Sb in Virgo
Sb in Virgo, 7.2 arcminutes across, its light 82 million years old. Measured by HyperLEDA, photographed by Pan-STARRS1. Recorded once.
About NGC 5746
NGC 5746 is a large spiral seen edge-on in Virgo, with a bright bulge and a sharp dust lane. It is one of the more massive spirals in its part of the sky.
What you are looking at
NGC 5746 is a spiral with a sizeable central bulge and well-defined arms, close in type to the Milky Way. 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 173,000 light-years, about 1.8 times 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. One supernova has been recorded in it: SN 1983P. It is cited in 378 scientific papers indexed by SIMBAD, and recorded there under 26 different catalogue designations.
When this light set out
The light that reaches us from NGC 5746 today set out about 82 million years ago, when dinosaurs were at their peak. The galaxy is moving away from us at about 1,711 km/s (3.8 million mph), carried by the expansion of the universe.
Finding it in the sky
In the sky, NGC 5746 sits within the constellation Virgo. It is best placed on summer evenings: around 9:30 pm in June it stands about 52° 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 5740 (0.3° away on the sky, at least 440,000 light-years from it); UGC 9482 (1.4° away on the sky, at least 2,000,000 light-years from it); UGC 9470 (1.5° away on the sky, at least 2,130,000 light-years from it); UGC 9432 (1.8° away on the sky, at least 2,530,000 light-years from it), and 13 more.
By apparent size it is number 39 of the 12,657 galaxies on the Galaxy Origins register.
Measurements
| Catalogue | PGC 52665 |
|---|---|
| Morphological type | Sb |
| Angular diameter | 7.24′ |
| Right ascension | 14h44m55.9s |
| Declination | +01°57′17.7″ |
| Constellation | Virgo |
| Inclination | 90.0° |
| Light travel time | 82 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 7.2 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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