NGC 5221 is a spiral galaxy in the constellation of Virgo. Its velocity with respect to the cosmic microwave background is , which corresponds to a Hubble distance of . However, eight non-redshift measurements give a closer mean distance of . It was discovered by German-British astronomer William Herschel on 12 April 1784.
NGC 5221 is a radio galaxy, i.e. it has giant regions of radio emission extending well beyond its visible structure.
Arp 288 ] NGC 5221 together with and are catalogued as Arp288 by Halton Arp in his Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies, in the category of "wind effects." The group is described by Arp as "Streamers in both directions from edge of spiral." The three galaxies are also listed as VV315 in the Vorontsov-Vel'yaminov Interacting Galaxies catalogue.
Supernova One supernova has been observed in NGC 5221: SN 2016bln (TypeIa-91T, mag. 19.2) was discovered by the Palomar Transient Factory on 4 April 2016. At the time, it was described as "one of the earliest detections of an over-luminous SN Ia made to date."
Image gallery
See also List of NGC objects (5001–6000) Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies
References (online version, including Arp's original tabular data, and PDF link)
External links