NGC 4699 - Galaxy
NGC 4699 is a barred spiral of Hubble Type "SABb" in the constellation Virgo at a distance of about 57 million light years. It has an apparent brightness
of 9.8mag and reaches a size of 3.8'x2.8' arcminutes. The galaxy was first discovered in 1786 by F.W. Herschel with 18.7" aperture. It is the brightest of
15 galaxies in a group named "LGG 305".
With a diameter of 95,000 light years it is only a little smaller than our Milky Way. In the inner region we find a short bar surrounded by a ring, which in
turn is connected to the tightly wound spiral arms. The large bulge unites 11% of the total mass of the galaxy, which by the way is extraordinarily much.
This is the reason for the unusual appearance of NGC 4699. So far only two supernovae have been observed in this galaxy: "SN 1948A" and "SN 1983K".
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I found NGC 4699 interesting because the galaxy looked like a fried egg in a photographic image and I wanted to know if the impression is the same in
my telescope.
And yeah, in a 20 inch telescope the special features can be seen, even if the fried egg does not come across as clearly as in photographic images. The very large
bulge is nevertheless well visible. At a higher magnification you can see a faint stellar nucleus in the center, i.e. a very dense central core region. The galaxy itself is
small and with 9.8mag quite bright. To the east there is another very faint galaxy (Leda 183306), which is only about 17mag bright and therefore even with my
20" only visible with averted vision.
If you like to see a cosmic fried egg, I can definitely recommend NGC 4699.
