NGC 5866
Sign in to saveAlso known as Spindle Galaxy, Messier 102, M102, New General Catalogue 5866
lenticular galaxy in the constellation Draco
Key facts
- Constellation
- Draco
- Right ascension
- 15 06 29.5
- Declination
- +55 ° 45 ′ 48 ″
- Redshift
- 0.002 518 ± 0.000 017
- Heliocentric radial velocity
- 755 ± 5 km/s
- Galactocentric velocity
- 901 ± 8 km/s
- Distance
- 50 ± 3 Mly (15.3 ± 0.7 Mpc )
- Type
- SA0 ; Sy
- Size
- 23.44 kiloparsecs (76,000 light-years ), (diameter; D 25 isophote )
- Apparent size v
- 4.7 ′ × 1.9 ′
- Notable features
- The galaxy is viewed edge on
via Wikipedia infobox
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Encyclopedic overview
NGC 5866 (also called the Spindle Galaxy or possibly 'Messier 102') is a lenticular galaxy in the constellation Draco. NGC 5866 was most likely discovered by Pierre Méchain or Charles Messier in 1781, and independently found by William Herschel in 1788. Measured orbital velocities of its globular cluster system imply that dark matter makes up only 34%±45% of the mass within 5 effective radii, a notable paucity.
Dust lane
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “NGC 5866” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.