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 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.
There is a supermassive black hole at the core of NGC 4697 as measured from the Atacama Large Millimeter Array observations of the rotation of the central gas disk. One supernova has been observed in NGC 4697: SN 2018imd (type Ia, mag. 15.5).

Telescope: Planewave CDK17 (FR) f4.5
Mount: Astro Physics 1600GTO
Camera: QHY16200A/ Integral FW
Guider: Agena Starguide II / ZWO ASI178MM
Filters: Astronomik 36mm LRGB

L: 56×10 mins = 560 mins, R: 24×10 mins = 240 mins, G: 24×10 mins = 240 mins, B: 24×10 mins = 240 mins

Total Imaging Time: 21h 20m

Data Imaged remotely over 7 nights during April & May 2023.
Imaged from Observatorio El Sauce, Chile, in partnership with Fred Espenak.
Data acquisition & Processing by David Churchill.

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