Principal Galaxies Catalogue


The Catalogue of Principal Galaxies is an astronomical catalog published in 1989 that lists B1950 and J2000 equatorial coordinates and cross-identifications for 73,197 galaxies. It is based on the Lyon-Meudon Extragalactic Database, which was originally started in 1983. 40,932 coordinates have standard deviations smaller than 10″. A total of 131,601 names from the 38 most common sources are listed. Available mean data for each object are given:
The Lyon-Meudon Extragalactic Database was eventually expanded into HyperLEDA, a database of a few million galaxies. Galaxies in the original PGC catalogue are numbered with their original PGC number in HyperLEDA. Numbers have also been assigned for the other galaxies, although for those galaxies not in the original PGC catalogue, it is not recommended to use that number as a name.

Examples

PGC 39058

is a dwarf galaxy which is located approximately 14 million light-years away in the constellation of Draco. It is relatively nearby, however it is obscured by a bright star which is in front of the galaxy.

PGC 6240

is a large lenticular galaxy in the constellation Hydrus. It is located about 346 million light-years away from Earth.