[M64] [M94]

The M94 group of galaxies - CVn I Cloud

According to De Vaucouleurs (1975), this is a nearby loose and scattered cloud or group of galaxies (his G3, or Canes Venatici I Cloud). Its distance is not very well known but estimated at about 14-20 million light years.

Messier objects: M64, M94.

De Vaucouleurs also includes M106, but because of its larger redshift, this is probably a more remote non-member galaxy, no more included e.g. in Schmidt and Boller (1992).

This group is rather loose and clearly dominated by the two Messier galaxies. It does not show up as a unique group in R. Brent Tully's Nearby Galaxies Catalog; here, M64 and UGC 8024 are listed as a small group of their own, while M94 and the rest are mixe up with Schmidt-Boller's NGC 4244 group. The vastness of this group may be illustrated by the fact that their apparent separation of about 20 degrees in the sky indicates that the projected linear distance of these galaxies from each other, a lower limit for the real distance, is about 35 percent of their distance from us, or about 5-7 million light years - about 2-3 times the distance between the Milky Way and the Andromeda Galaxy.

The following table lists some data for the galaxies in the Canes Venatici I Cloud or M94 group (or M94-M64 group) according to Schmidt and Boller:

Galaxy    Name II   RA (2000.0) Dec type m_v       dim      RV

UGCA 281            12:26.3 +48:29   P     14.77   0.9x0.8  367
UGC 7639            12:29.9 +47:31   Ir+   13.79p  3.2x1.5  462
IC 3687   W. V.7    12:42.1 +38:30   Ir+   13.33p  3.5x2.1  396
UGC 7949                             Sab
UGC 7990                             
M94       NGC 4736  12:50.9 +41:07   Sb     8.17  11.0x9.1  329
UGC 8024            12:54.0 +27:09   Ir+   13.79p  2.2x1.8  380
M64       NGC 4826  12:56.7 +21:41   Sb     8.51   9.4x5.4  377
IC 4182   W. V.216  13:05.8 +37:36   Sm    12.63p  6.7x5.9  380
NGC 5023  H 2.664   13:12.2 +44:02   Sc:   12.25p  6.5x1.0  484

Key: Galaxy: Some catalog number or name; RA/Dec: Position 2000.0; type: Hubble type; m_v: apparent visual magnitude; dim: dimension in arc minutes; RV: radial velocity (all data from the Sky Catalog 2000 when available).

References

G. De Vaucouleurs, 1975. Nearby Groups of Galaxies, ch. 4, The Local Group. Published in "Galaxies and the Universe," ed. by A. Sandage, M. Sandage and J. Kristian.
K.-H. Schmidt and T. Boller, 1992. Nearby Galaxies. I. The catalogue. Astronomische Nachrichten, Vol. 313, No. 4, p. 189-231.

Hartmut Frommert
Christine Kronberg
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Last Modification: April 18, 1998