Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Virgo (Vir)  ·  Contains:  NGC 4664  ·  NGC 4665
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NGC 4665, Gary Imm
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NGC 4665

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NGC 4665, Gary Imm
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NGC 4665

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Description

This object, also known as NGC 4624 and NGC 4664, is a barred lenticular galaxy located 55 million light years away in the constellation of Virgo at a declination of +3 degrees. This 10.5 magnitude galaxy has a surface brightness of 13.4. It spans 4 arc-minutes in our apparent view, which corresponds to an actual diameter of 60,000 light years.

There is more structure here than first meets the eye. A bright small central core is embedded in a slightly larger bulge of brightness. This in turn is embedded in the bright, almost vertical bar. Each end of the bar, top and bottom, transitions to a faint but distinct spiral arm feature. I especially find interesting the faint reddish tint of the outer region, which I find unusual for a lenticular galaxy.

This galaxy is less than one degree from NGC 4636 and makes a good framing pair with it for shorter focal length scopes. Many distant galaxies and quasars are visible in the background in the full resolution view, most well over 1 billion light years away.

I find that this galaxy looks a lot like NGC 4477, which is at the same right ascension but is about 10 degrees further north in the sky.

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