The New General Catalogue of Nebulae and Clusters of Stars (abbreviated as NGC) is a catalogue of deep-sky objects compiled by John Louis Emil Dreyer in 1888. The NGC contains 7,840 objects, known as the NGC objects. It is one of the largest comprehensive catalogues, as it includes all types of deep space objects, including galaxies, star clusters, emission nebulae and absorption nebulae.

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NGC 4526


NGC 4526 (also listed as NGC 4560) is a lenticular galaxy with an embedded dusty disc, located approximately 55 million light-years from the Solar System in the Virgo constellation and discovered on 13 April 1784 by William Herschel. Herschel observed it again on 28 December 1785, resulting in the galaxy being entered twice into the New General Catalogue. The galaxy is seen nearly edge-on. The morphological classification is SAB(s)0°, which indicates a lenticular structure with a weak bar across the center and pure spiral arms without a ring. It belongs to the Virgo cluster and is one of the brightest known lenticular galaxies. In the galaxy's outer halo, globular cluster orbital velocities indicate abnormal poverty of dark matter: only 43±18% of the mass within 5 effective radii. The inner nucleus of this galaxy displays a rise in stellar orbital motion that indicates the presence of a central dark mass. The best fit model for the motion of molecular gas in the core region suggests there is a supermassive black hole with about 4.5+4.2−3.0×108 (450 million) times the mass of the Sun. This is the first object to have its black-hole mass estimated by measuring the rotation of gas molecules around its centre with an astronomical interferometer (in this case the Combined Array for Research in Millimeter-wave Astronomy).

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Wikipedia Page: NGC 4526
NGC 4526 at In-The-Sky website


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