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public  Greenwich, UK Greenwich, UK  ⓘ
TimezoneEurope/London
Sunrise: 7:52 
Transit: 11:51 
Sunset: 15:50
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All Constellations »  Virgo »  Deep Sky Objects » 

NGC 4257 - Spiral Galaxy in Virgo

Below the horizon.  Rise: 0:48 | Tran: 7:14 | Set: 13:40
Alt: -30.03°   Az: 24.93°   Direction: North-North-East

NGC 4257 is a Spiral Galaxy in the Virgo constellation. NGC 4257 is situated close to the celestial equator and, as such, it is at least partly visible from both hemispheres in certain times of the year. Given its B magnitude of 15, NGC 4257 is visible with the help of a telescope having an aperture of 20 inches (500mm) or more.

The image below is a photograph of NGC 4257 from the Digitized Sky Survey 2 (DSS2 - see the credits section) taken in the red channel. The area of sky represented in the image is 0.5000x0.5000 degrees (30.00x30.00 arcmins).

Image of NGC 4257 - Spiral Galaxy in Virgo star
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DSS2 image of NGC 4257 in the Red band. The green region on the image is a representation of the major (0.47 arcmin) and minor (0.18 arcmin) axes of the object's apparent size.

Celestial Coordinates

Apparent

12h 20m 22s
+05° 35’ 15”
13h 26m 01s
01h 46m 24s

J2000

12h 19m 05s
+05° 43’ 33”

Finder Chart

The simplified sky charts below show the position of NGC 4257 in the sky. The first chart has a field of view of 60° while the second one has a field of view of 10°.

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Finder chart for NGC 4257 - Spiral Galaxy in Virgo.

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Finder chart for NGC 4257 - Spiral Galaxy in Virgo.

Photometric Information

The following table lists the magnitude of NGC 4257 in different bands of the electomagnetic spectrum (when available), from the B band (445nm wavelength, corresponding to the Blue color), to the V band ( 551nm wavelength, corresponding to Green/Yellow color), to the J, H, K bands (corresponding to 1220nm, 1630nm, 2190nm wavelengths respectively, which are colors not visible to the human eye).

15
11.63
10.93
10.7

For more information about photometry in astronomy, check the photometric system article on Wikipedia.

The surface brightess reported below is an indication of the brightness per unit of angular area of NGC 4257.

21.16 mag/arcsec2

Apparent Size

The following table reports NGC 4257 apparent angular size. The green area displayed on top of the DSS2 image of NGC 4257 is a visual representation of it.
0.47 arcmin
0.18 arcmin
66°

Morphological Classification

NGC 4257 - Spiral Galaxy in Virgo is classified as Spiral (SAab) according to the Hubble and de Vaucouleurs galaxy morphological classification. The diagram below shows a visual representation of the position of NGC 4257 - Spiral Galaxy in Virgo in the Hubble de Vaucouleurs sequence.

NGC 4257 - Spiral Galaxy in Virgo
Visualization of the morphological classification of NGC 4257 - Spiral Galaxy in Virgo, Spiral (SAab).
Credits for the background image: Antonio Ciccolella / M. De Leo / CC BY

Rise and Set Times

Location: Greenwich, UK
Latitude: 51° 28’ 47” N
Longitude: 0° 00’ 00” E
Timezone: Europe/London

Today's NGC 4257 - Spiral Galaxy in Virgo rise, transit and set times from Greenwich, UK are the following (all times relative to the local timezone Europe/London):

Azimuth: 84.4°
Max altitude: 44.1°
Azimuth: 275.6°