NGC 4323

NGC 4323 is a lenticular or dwarf elliptical galaxy^[7] located about 52.5 million light-years away in the constellation Coma Berenices. The galaxy was discovered in 1882 by astronomer Wilhelm Tempel^[8] and is a member of the Virgo Cluster.^[9]

NGC 4323
SDSS image of NGC 4323.
Observation data (J2000 epoch)
Constellation	Coma Berenices[1]
Right ascension	12h 23m 01.7s[2]
Declination	15° 54′ 20″[2]
Redshift	0.006182[2]
Heliocentric radial velocity	869 km/s[2]
Distance	52.5[3] Mly
Group or cluster	Virgo Cluster
Apparent magnitude (V)	15.1g[2]
Characteristics
Type	SB0^0(r), dE[2]
Mass	1.7×109[4] M☉
Size	~23,000 ly (7 kpc) (estimated)[5]
Apparent size (V)	0.953′ × 0.610′[6]
Other designations
PGC 40171, VCC 608, MCG +03-32-016[2]

NGC 4323 is commonly misidentified as NGC 4322, which is a 13th magnitude star.^[10][11]

Interaction with Messier 100

NGC 4323 is a companion of Messier 100,^{[12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22]} which lies 78,000 light-years (24 kiloparsecs) away.^[13][17][21] The two galaxies appear to be interacting,^{[15][19][20][22]} as evidenced by Messier 100's rotation curve, an asymmetry of its HI disk,^[19][20] and a faint, optical bridge that connects it to NGC 4323.^{[14][15][16][17][20][22]} However, Knapen et al. suggests that the two galaxies are not interacting as NGC 4323 is a small galaxy and has a large separation from Messier 100.^[19]

See also

• List of NGC objects (4001–5000)