NGC 4696 is an elliptical galaxy. It lies around 145,000,000 light-years (44,000,000 pc) away in the constellation Centaurus. It is the brightest galaxy in the Centaurus Cluster, a large, rich cluster of galaxies in the constellation of the same name. The galaxy is surrounded by many dwarf elliptical galaxies also located within the cluster. There is believed to be a supermassive black hole at the center of the galaxy.

One supernova, SN 2017ejb (type Ia, mag. 17.2), was discovered in NGC 4696 on 28 May, 2017.