Abell 1413 is a massive and rich type I galaxy cluster straddling the border between the constellations Leo and Coma Berenices, with the projected comoving distance of approximately 640 Mpc (2.1 billion ly).

As early as 1965, astronomers William Wilson Morgan and Janet Rountree Lesh pointed out the galaxy's extreme nature, citing it as a "very large and luminous central galaxy" that could possibly be the largest of all cD ellipticals discovered, and hence must be checked for being a possible foreground object.

[8] During the following decade, several other papers observed the cluster, particularly its cD galaxy, hence revealing its very extreme properties.

It is rare for brightest cluster galaxies to have such an ellipticity; even then, Abell 1413 BCG is the most extreme known example of all of these.

[15][16] Abell 1413 is located 2 billion light years away from Earth between the constellations of Leo and Coma Berenices.