4C +41.26

4C +41.26 known as PGC 2174167, is a massive elliptical galaxy of type E located in the constellation of Canes Venatici. Its redshift is 0.228324, estimating the galaxy to be located 3 billion light years away from Earth. It is the brightest cluster galaxy of Abell 1763 (ACO 1763).

Characteristics
4C +41.26 is one of the largest galaxies. Spanning at least 862,300 light-years across in diameter, it is classified as a Type-cD galaxy. Not to mention, the galaxy has a high line-of-sight peculiar velocity reaching up to vpec ~ 650 km s−1. It has an active galactic nucleus, containing a powerful P1.4 ~ 1026 W Hz−1 bended double-lobed radio source, suggesting 4C +41.26 is likely shaped through its relative bulk intracluster medium (ICM) flow caused by one or several galaxy mergers. The galaxy is estimated to have span MK = −25.7 to −27.8 mag, with the cluster halo masses of M500 up to 1.7 × 1015 M⊙.

4C +41.26 is part of the rich galaxy cluster with at least 181 identified galaxy members, fitted through the integrated spectral energy distributions (SEDs) utilized with a set of templates built with GRASIL 3d model, by astronomers. The members in the cluster consists of elliptical, spiral, starburst, and poststarburst galaxies. It is suggested according to observations from Spitzler MIPS Data, researchers have found traces of increased starburst activity in filament galaxies inside ACO 1763.

The cluster hosts two galaxy filaments which stretches towards another neighboring galaxy cluster, Abell 1770 (ACO 1770) located ~ 13 Mpc away. The intracluster gas of ACO 1770 is elongated in the same direction, as indicated by its X-ray morphology. As the cluster is fed by the filaments, it causes 4C +41.26 to be displaced from its original location from center of the cluster (0.1 Mpc off the X-ray peak emission) by the subcluster-cluster collisions and pressure of the intracluster gas. This results the galaxy falling towards Abell 1770.