NGC 3198

Also Known as: Herschel 146, UGC 5572

Object Type: Barred Spiral Galaxy

Constellation: Ursa Major

Distance from Earth: 47 million light years

Apparent Magnitude: 10.3

Coordinates: RA 10H 19M 54.99S DEC 45 deg 32 min 58.88 sec

Radius: 8.5’ x 3.3’

Actual Size: 79,900 light years in diameter

Apparent Dimensions: 7.4 arc-minutes x 6.9 arc-minutes

Discovered by: NGC 3198 was discovered by William Parsons, 3rd Earl of Rosse, sometime before 1850.

Description: NGC 3198 is located in the Leo Spur, which is part of the Virgo Supercluster.
NGC 3198 was one of 18 galaxies targeted by the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) Key Project on the Extragalactic Distance Scale, which aimed to calibrate various secondary distance indicators and determine the Hubble constant to an accuracy of 10%.
The type and orientation of NGC 3198 made it suitable for these measurements.
The Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2) was used to measure the magnitudes of 52 Cepheid variables, and the resulting distance modulus corresponded to a distance of 47 million light years.
Observations made with the Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope detected for the first time the presence of extraplanar gas.
The extraplanar gas makes up approximately 15% of the total atomic hydrogen (HI) mass of the galaxy.
Two supernovae have been discovered in NGC 3198: SN 1966J, a Type Ib supernova, and 1999bw, which was significantly fainter than expected when first discovered, and has been classified a Type IIn supernova.

Click Below Image(s) for Full Size:

NGC 3198 is situated north of the celestial equator and, as such, it is more easily visible from the northern hemisphere.

Platesolve

NGC 3198 Galaxy

Imaging Details
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