Galaxies Messier 91 & NGC 4571

Messier 91
Messier 91: Galaxy M91 in Coma Berenices; 500 mm Cassegrain 3625 mm f/7.2; SBIG STL11K; 220+90+90+90 min LRGB; Bernese Highlands; © 2016 Radek Chromik [32]

History

Charles Messier discovered the galaxy M 91 on 18 March 1781 and wrote: «Nebula without a star, in Virgo, above the previous number 90: The light is even weaker than the previous one [M 90]. Note: The constellation Virgo, especially the northern part, is one of the constellations that contains the most nebulae. This catalog contains thirteen of them that have been determined. The following numbers: 49, 58, 59, 60, 61, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90 and 91. All these nebulae appear without a star and you can only see them in a clear sky if they have the meridian happen. Most of these nebulae were found by M. Méchain.» [281]

At the coordinates that Messier stated at the time, there is no nebula that fits the description and so M 91 was considered lost for a long time. It was not until 1969 that an amateur astronomer discovered that Messier probably measured the position of M 91 using M 89, while he believed it was M 58 and that the position was therefore incorrectly entered. If you reproduce Messier's measurement error, you get to the position of NGC 4548 with an accuracy of 0.1 minutes in right ascension and 1' in declination. M 91 must therefore be NGC 4548. [217]

Physical Properties

M 91 is a beautiful bar-spiral galaxy of the morphological type SB_a and has a LINER-type active core. Measured distances range from 16.2 Mpc to 19 Mpc. [145]

Revised+Historic NGC/IC Version 22/9, © 2022 Dr. Wolfgang Steinicke [277]
Designation NGC 4548
Type Gx (SBb)
Right Ascension (J2000.0) 12h 35m 26.4s
Declination (J2000.0) +14° 29' 47"
Diameter 5.2 × 4.2 arcmin
Photographic (blue) magnitude 11.0 mag
Visual magnitude 10.2 mag
Surface brightness 13.4 mag·arcmin-2
Position Angle 150°
Redshift (z) 0.001621
Distance derived from z 6.85 Mpc
Metric Distance 16.200 Mpc
Dreyer Description B, L, lE, lbM
Identification, Remarks WH II 120; h 1345; GC 3093; M 91; UGC 7753; MCG 3-32-75; IRAS 12328+1446; CGCG 99-96; VCC 1615
NGC 4571
NGC 4571: Section of the Sloan Digitized Sky Survey [147]

Further Galaxies in that Area

The spiral galaxy NGC 4571 is located just under half a degree from M 91 and directly next to the 8.9 mag bright star SAO 100177. It was discovered by William Herschel on 14 January 1787 and in 1888 by Dreyer under the number 4571 in his «New General Catalog of Nebulae and Cluster of Stars». On 23 November 1900, the German astronomer Arnold Schwassmann looked at the place in the sky. He apparently misinterpreted the 15th mag star west of the galaxy as NGC 4571 and believed it was a new discovery, which is why the same galaxy later received a second entry in the «Index Catalogue» as IC 3588. [196]

NGC 4571 is a spiral galaxy of the morphological type SA (r) d and is located about 16.5 Mpc to 19.4 Mpc from Earth.

«Catalogue of Principal Galaxies» Paturel et al., 1989 [144]
PGC RA Dec Type Dim Btot HRV PA Names
PGC 41978 12 35 44.3 +14 24 47 S R .7 x .3 15.6 CGCG 99-97, VCC 1636
PGC 42100 12 36 56.6 +14 13 03 S 3.7 x 3.4 11.9 342 55 NGC 4571, IC 3588, UGC 7788, MCG 2-32-156, CGCG 70-194, VCC 1696, IRAS 12344+1429

Finder Chart

The two galaxies are located in the constellation Coma Berenices. The best observation time is December to July.

Finder Chart Galaxies Messier 91 & NGC 4571
Galaxies Messier 91 & NGC 4571 in constellation Coma Berenices. Charts created using SkySafari 6 Pro and STScI Digitized Sky Survey. Limiting magnitudes: Constellation chart ~6.5 mag, DSS2 close-ups ~20 mag. [149, 160]

Objects Within a Radius of 10°

References