NGC 5850
NGC 5850 is a barred spiral galaxy in the constellation Virgo. Its speed relative to the cosmic microwave background is 2,735 ± 13 km/s, which corresponds to a Hubble distance of 40.3 ± 2.8 Mpc. NGC 5850 was discovered by German-British astronomer William Herschel on 24 February 1786.
Characteristics
The luminosity class of NGC 5850 is II and it has a broad HI1 line. It is also classified a LINER galaxy; a galaxy whose nucleus presents an emission spectrum characterized by broad lines of weakly ionized atoms.To date, seven non-redshift measurements yield a distance of 18.7 ± 1.75 Mpc, which is far outside the Hubble distance values. Note that it is with the average value of independent measurements, when they exist, that the NASA/IPAC database calculates the diameter of a galaxy and that consequently the diameter of NGC 5850 could be approximately 58.7 kpc if we used the Hubble distance to calculate it.
Morphology
NGC 5850 was used by Gérard de Vaucouleurs as a galaxy of morphological type SBb in his galaxy atlas. It is classified as a prototype double-barred system early-type spiral galaxy by other studies as well.In 2002, Eskridge, Frogel and Pogge published a paper, describing the morphology of 205 closely spaced spiral galaxies. The observations were carried out in the H band of infrared and in the B band. According to Eskridge and his colleagues, NGC 5850 is a spiral galaxy of type SBab in the B band and type SB0/a in the H band. The isophotes of the outer bulb are almost circular. The nucleus appears elliptical. The bulb is crossed by a very long bar with ansae at its end. The bar is inclined at 60 degrees to the interior bulb. A complete inner ring is formed at the end of the bar and beyond there is a faint spiral structure. The spiral arms appear to form an incomplete outer pseudo-ring. One of these spiral arms of NGC 5850 appears broken, likely caused by an interaction with a north-west object.