NGC 4216 and Companions

NGC4216 is flanked in this image by NGC4206 and NGC 4222.All three, together with several others in this image, are members of the Virgo galaxy cluster.

NGC4216 is a spiral some 8 arc-minutes long, total magnitude 10.3 but its surface brightness is rather lower at 13.1. It is about 55 million light years (mly) distant.

To its left, NGC4206 is a dusty spiral, somewhat further away at 70 mly, and fainter at mag 12.8.

To its right, NGC4222 is also a spiral, mag 13.2 and thought to be slightly more distant than 4216, though some sources refer to it as a companion. All three of these galaxies are tilted nearly edge-on to us.

There are three or four fainter galaxies below NGC4206. That galaxy points down – beyond the star – toward IC 771, small but clearly a face-on barred spiral galaxy. Two other galaxies – best described as smudges – below 4206 are PGC 39159 (mag 16.5) and below that, PGC 39131 (mag 16.1).

It may just be possible to make out, forming an equilateral triangle with those two and more clearly visible on the full-res image, another smudge marking PGC 39157, which I mention only because at mag 19.6 it is near what was the photographic magnitude limit of the Palomar 200-inch telescope before the advent of CCD imaging. Amateur astrophotography has certainly come a long way since then.

North is to the lower right in this image.

Exposure times were 8 hrs Luminosity, 5.5 hrs Red, 6.5 hrs Green and 6 hrs Blue.

Equipment: Planewave CDK-14 corrected Dall-Kirkham scope, FLI Proline P09000 CCD camera and Astrodon E-series filters. Autoguided using a Monster MOAG off-axis guider and Starlight Xpress UltraStar Pro guide camera.

Acquisition software: Maxim DL, ACP Expert Scheduler. Image processing: Pixinsight.