Centaurus Cluster

The Centaurus Cluster (A3526) is a cluster of hundreds of galaxies, located approximately 170 million light-years away in the Centaurus constellation. The brightest member galaxy is the elliptical galaxy NGC 4696 (~11m). The Centaurus cluster shares its supercluster, the Hydra–Centaurus Supercluster, with IC4329 Cluster and Hydra Cluster.

The cluster consists of two different sub-groups of galaxies with different velocities. Cen 30 is the main subgroup containing NGC 4696. Cen 45 which is centered on NGC 4709, is moving at 1500 km/s relative to Cen 30, and is believed to be merging with the main cluster.

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  NGC 4696: a cosmic question mark
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  Chandra X-ray image showing the inner 6.7 arcminutes of the core of the Centaurus Cluster. This image shows the hot intracluster medium, at temperatures of a few tens of million kelvins.
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  Region around NGC 4709 (large galaxy in the middle) in the western part of the Centaurus Cluster.
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  East part of the Centaurus Cluster with NGC 4729, NGC 4730 and NGC 4743.

• Abell catalogue
• List of Abell clusters
• X-ray astronomy

• The Centaurus Cluster on WikiSky: DSS2, SDSS, GALEX, IRAS, Hydrogen α, X-Ray, Astrophoto, Sky Map, Articles and images