Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Coma Berenices (Com)  ·  Contains:  IC 3292  ·  M 85  ·  NGC 4382  ·  NGC 4394  ·  PGC 1559238  ·  PGC 40512  ·  PGC 40567
Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
M85 and NGC 4394, Mau_Bard
M85 and NGC 4394, Mau_Bard

M85 and NGC 4394

Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
M85 and NGC 4394, Mau_Bard
M85 and NGC 4394, Mau_Bard

M85 and NGC 4394

Equipment

Loading...

Acquisition details

Loading...

Description

This is an old recording dating back to 26-27-28 March 2022. Cloudy weather in winter 2022-2023 is helping me drying out my backlog of old images - a positive side of it.

M85
Also known as NGC 4382 or PGC 40515, it is a lenticular/elliptical galaxy, in the Coma Berenices constellation. It is 60 million light-years away, and it is estimated to be 125,000 light-years across.

It was discovered by Pierre Méchain in 1781.
It is within the outskirts of the Virgo cluster, and is relatively isolated.

M85 is extremely poor in neutral hydrogen and has a very complex outer structure with shells and ripples that are thought to have been caused by a merger with another galaxy that took place between 4 and 7 billion years ago, as well as a relatively young (<3 billion years old) stellar population on its centermost region, some of it in a ring, that may have been created by a late starburst. Like other massive, early-type galaxies, it has different populations of globular clusters. Aside from the typical "red" and "blue" populations, there is also a population with intermediate colors and an even redder population. It is likely transitioning from being a lenticular galaxy into an elliptical galaxy.

While indirect methods imply that Messier 85 should contain a central supermassive black hole of around 100 million solar masses, velocity dispersion observations imply that the galaxy may entirely lack a central massive black hole.

The type I supernova, 1960R was discovered in M85 on December 20, 1960 and reached an apparent magnitude of 11.7.
This galaxy has also been the host of the first luminous red nova identified as such, M85 OT2006-1. It was discovered on January 7 of 2006 and took place on the outskirts of this galaxy.
On 25th June 2020, the ATLAS telescope in Hawaii spotted a type Ia supernova 2020nlb in M85, which reached a peak magnitude of 12.0.

M85 is interacting with the nearby spiral galaxy NGC 4394, and a small elliptical galaxy called MCG 3-32-38 (PGC 40512, just below M85 in the picture).

Compared to similar galaxies, M85 emits a relatively smaller proportion of X-rays.

NGC4394
NGC 4394 is a SBb barred spiral galaxy in the constellation Coma Berenices and is situated about 39.5 million light-years (12.1 Mpc) from Earth. It was discovered on 14 March 1784 by the German–British astronomer William Herschel. It is a presumed companion to M85, which lies 8 arc minutes away. It is also a member of the Virgo Cluster.

IC3292
IC 3292 is a Hubble-type S0 dwarf lenticular galaxy in Coma Berenices, estimated to be 29 million light-years distant from the Milky Way.
The object was discovered on May 7, 1904 by astronomer Royal Harwood Frost.

(objects description excerpted from Wikipedia)

Comments