Elliptical Galaxies

Click icon to view an elliptical galaxy of Messier’s catalog

The icon shows M87, also called Virgo A, the supergiant

elliptical in the heart of the Virgo Cluster.

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Elliptical galaxies are ellipsoidal agglomerations of stars, which usually do

not contain much interstellar matter, and look smoothly like small wads in the

telescope. Sizes vary from considerably small systems (as

M32 which is quite bright though) to really giant

guys as M87.

Some disk galaxies without much structure, i.e.

lenticulars, can hardly be distinguished from

(and thus are sometimes misclassified as) elliptical galaxies; this has

happened in the past to all four Messier lenticulars, among many others.

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Elliptical galaxies of Messier’s catalog:

M32,

M49,

M59,

M60,

M87,

M89,

M105,

M110

(Probable) S0 galaxies in Messier’s catalog:

M84,

M85,

M86,

NGC 5866 (M102 ?)

• Look at Elliptical Galaxies in Messier’s Catalog

• Also look at our collection of some significant non-Messier elliptical galaxies

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Spiral

Lenticular

Irregular

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Hartmut Frommert

([email protected])

Christine Kronberg

([email protected])

Last Modification: 25 Jan 1998, 16:06 MET