| NGC 4697 | |
| Epoch: | J2000 |
| Constellation Name: | Virgo |
| Type: | E6[1] |
| Dist Ly: | ~ 38 Mly / ~ 50 Mly[2] |
| Z: | 1241 ± 1 km/s |
| Size V: | 4.4 × 2.8 |
| Appmag V: | 10.97 |
| Names: | Caldwell 52, UGCA 300, MCG -01-33-010, PGC 043276 |
NGC 4697 (also known as Caldwell 52) is an elliptical galaxy some 40 to 50 million light-years away in the constellation Virgo. It is a member of the NGC 4697 Group, a group of galaxies also containing NGC 4731 and several generally much smaller galaxies.[3] This group is about 55 million light-years away; it is one of the many Virgo II Groups, which form a southern extension of the Virgo Supercluster of galaxies.
The distance to NGC 4697 is not known with high precision: measurements vary from 28 to 76 million light-years. According to the NASA Extra-galactic Database, the average is about 38 million light-years; according to SIMBAD, about 50 million light-years.
The supermassive black hole at the core of NGC 4697 has a mass of as measured from Atacama Large Millimeter Array observations of the rotation of the central gas disk.[4]
One supernova has been observed in NGC 4697: SN 2018imd (type Ia, mag. 15.5).[5]