NGC/IC Project Restoration Effort
(This is a very very beta version)
NGC4402
Basic Information
Location and Magnitude
Right Ascension: 12:26:7.8
Declination: +13:6:47
Constellation: VIR
Visual Magnitude: 11.8
Historic Information
Discoverer: Stoney J.
Year of discovery: 1849
Discovery aperture: 72.0
Observational
Summary description: F, L, mE 90° (Auw 30)
Sub-type: Sb
Corwin's Notes
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NGC 4402. Here is another of the 11 galaxies seen by Johnstone Stoney on the
night of 13 April 1849 that Dreyer does not credit to "LdR" in the NGC (Steve
Gottlieb noticed the omission; see also NGC 4306). The galaxy is [eta] in the
sketch, and Stoney describes it like this: "... hollow in the middle, probably
a ring seen obliquely, F * n of its middle, seen best with the single lens..."
His comment "hollow in the middle" clearly refers to the dust lane, and the
star is indeed 1.3 arcmin to the north.
See also NGC 4443.
Steve's Notes
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NGC 4402
24" (4/28/14): moderately bright, fairly large, very elongated 7:2 E-W, 2.1'x0.6'. Very mottled, patchy appearance implying a dusty equatorial plane and HII regions, though individual knots were not resolved. M86 is 10' N.
17.5" (4/25/87): fairly faint, fairly large, very elongated 3:1 E-W, fairly even surface brightness. Located 10' N of M86 in core of the Virgo cluster.
13" (5/14/83): faint, fairly large, even surface brightness.