Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Virgo (Vir)  ·  Contains:  NGC 4698
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NGC 4698, Gary Imm
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NGC 4698

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NGC 4698, Gary Imm
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NGC 4698

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Description

This object is a spiral galaxy located 57 million light years away in the constellation of Virgo at a declination of +8 degrees. The outer limits of this 12.3 magnitude galaxy spans 7 arc-minutes in our apparent view, which corresponds to a Milky Way diameter of 120,000 light years.


This galaxy is inclined to our line of sight by just over 45 degrees. The central bulge appears oriented left to right, almost perpendicular to the long axis of the galaxy. The dust lanes which look closest to us from our perspective appear more brown and more detailed than the rest of the disk. I think this effect may be caused by the brightness of the central bulge behind these dust lanes, which are lighting up the dust lanes in silhouette.

I love the faint transparent outer half of the galaxy disk. Scientists believe that the interesting structure of this galaxy may be due to prior mergers of smaller galaxies to create this one.

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