An S- or integral-sign shaped spiral galaxy, hence its use as an example in Arp's Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies. Based on its recessional velocity of 4715 km/sec, NGC 4615 is about 210 million light years away. Given that and its apparent size of 1.6 by 0.7 arcmin, it is about 100 thousand light years across.

A member of an interacting pair (with NGC 4625, which see for a discussion of the results of that interaction), hence its use as an example of a one-armed spiral galaxy in the Arp Atlas. Its 545 km/sec recessional velocity is too small, in comparison to peculiar (non-Hubble-expansion) velocities, to provide a reliable distance estimate, but is in good agreement with a redshift-independent distance estimate of 25 million light years. Given that and its apparent size of 4.2 by 3.4 arcmin, NGC 4625 is about 30 thousand light years across.

See NGC 4664 for images

Until recently, NGC 4625 was thought to be a rather ordinary spiral galaxy; but a few years ago it was discovered that its interaction with NGC 4618 has created extended spiral arms around NGC 4625, so sparsely populated that they are barely noticeable in visible light, but stand out in ultraviolet images due to the intense radiation of their very hot young stars. In the "normal" visible light images below, there is only the faintest hint of the extensive spiral structure which lies beyond what appears to be the entire galaxy, although digitally stretching the visible-light image brightness shows fainter structure at the expense of detail in the brighter regions. GALEX ultraviolet images even more clearly show the extended structure, and adding radio imaging to the mix shows that both galaxies are surrounded by immense clouds of cool hydrogen gas which completely fill the region between and around the pair. (Note: This "invisible" spectacle is not an example of so-called "dark matter", which cannot be seen with any kind of radiation, visible or otherwise.) The 600 km/sec recessional velocity of NGC 4625 is too small, in comparison to peculiar (non-Hubble-expansion) velocities, to provide a reliable distance estimate, but is in good agreement with a redshift-independent distance estimate of 27 to 30 million light years. Given that and its apparent size of 1.25 by 1.2 arcmin, the main body of NGC 4625 is only about 10 thousand light years across; but the outer structure is about 6 by 5 arcmin, which corresponds to about 45 thousand light years.

Below, a multispectral (and of necessity, false-color) image of NGC 4625 and its companion, NGC 4618, combines radio imaging of cool hydrogen gas (in purple) with a visible light image (in red) and near and far ultraviolet radiation (in green and blue, respectively). (Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech, Carnegie Observatories, WSRT, Planetary Photojournal)

Per Dreyer, NGC 4627 (= John Herschel's GC 3159, 1860 RA 12 35 11, NPD 56 39.1) is "faint, small, round, northwest of 2" (the other being NGC 4631). The position precesses to RA 12 42 00.9, Dec +32 34 47, about 0.5 arcmin northeast of the center of the galaxy, but well within its outline, and it is northwest of its companion (which see for wide-field images), so the identification is certain. Based on a recessional velocity of 540 km/sec, NGC 4627 is about 25 million light years away. For such a small recessional velocity, peculiar (non-Hubble expansion) velocities could be a large part of the motion, leading to a poor result; but as it happens, the calculated distance is in good agreement with a redshift-independent distance estimate of 30 million light years. Given that and the galaxy's apparent size of 2.6 by 1.8 arcmin, NGC 4627 is about 25 thousand light years across.

Per Dreyer, NGC 4631 (= John Herschel's GC 3165, 1860 RA 12 35 22, NPD 56 40.8) is "remarkable, very bright, very large, extremely extended 70° or so, bright middle nucleus, 12th magnitude star attached on north". The position precesses to RA 12 42 11.9, Dec +32 33 06, a little over 1 arcmin to the northeast of the center of the galaxy, but well within the outline of the "very large" galaxy, which matches Herschel's description in every respect; so the identification is certain. Based on a recessional velocity of 605 km/sec, NGC 4631 is about 28 million light years away. Given the small radial velocity, peculiar (non-Hubble expansion) velocities could substantially effect the quality of the result; but as it happens, the distance is in reasonable agreement with redshift-independent distance estimates of 18 to 24 million light years. Assuming a distance of about 25 million light years, the galaxy's apparent size of 15.5 by 2.7 arcmins corresponds to about 120 thousand light years. The galaxy is a gravitationally bound companion of the dwarf elliptical NGC 4627, which lies just above it, and of NGC 4656, which lies about half a degree to the southeast, and depending upon its distance from us, could be within half a million light years of its neighbor.

The second IC adds (per Schwassmann) "considerably bright, small, like a 10th-magnitude star; place agrees."

M60 is a 120 thousand light-year wide elliptical galaxy in the Virgo Cluster, 60 million light years distant. It is a massive galaxy, with thousands of globular clusters in addition to the trillions of stars in the galaxy itself.