Galaxy in Virgo
M61
Seen almost face-on, which makes it photogenic and visually feeble at once — all that structure spread far too thin to see. Eight supernovae have gone off in it, more than in any other galaxy Messier logged.
Eight supernovae is a rate that says something about the galaxy rather than about luck: it is forming stars fast, particularly in a bar-fed ring around the nucleus, and heavy stars formed fast are stars that die soon. Face-on is the worst possible angle for seeing any of that and the best for counting it.
- Catalogue
- M61
- Type
- Galaxy
- Constellation
- Virgo
- Distance
- 52 million light-years
- Apparent magnitude
- 9.7
- Surface brightness
- 22.2 mag/□″
- Apparent size
- 6′
- Right ascension
- 12h 22m
- Declination
- +4.47°
- Found by
- Barnabus Oriani, 1779
Small enough that its 9.7 magnitudes arrive concentrated rather than smeared: 22.2 per square arcsecond, which is why it stands out from the sky better than its brightness alone suggests. Why surface brightness is the number that matters.
Could you see it?
Straightforward with 10×50 binoculars from Bortle 4.
| Sky | Eye | 10×50 | 80mm | 130mm | 200mm |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bortle 1 21.9 mag/□″ | No | Easy | Easy | Easy | Easy |
| Bortle 2 21.7 mag/□″ | No | Easy | Easy | Easy | Easy |
| Bortle 3 21.4 mag/□″ | No | Easy | Easy | Easy | Easy |
| Bortle 4 20.9 mag/□″ | No | Easy | Easy | Easy | Easy |
| Bortle 5 20.3 mag/□″ | No | No | Challenge | Challenge | Challenge |
| Bortle 6 19.3 mag/□″ | No | No | No | No | No |
| Bortle 7 18.6 mag/□″ | No | No | No | No | No |
| Bortle 8 18.1 mag/□″ | No | No | No | No | No |
| Bortle 9 17.8 mag/□″ | No | No | No | No | No |
At the eyepiece
Face-on and therefore feeble: a round, even glow with a slightly brighter middle, and the arms are a large-aperture and dark-sky proposition. Photographically it is one of the finest galaxies in Virgo. Visually it is among the least rewarding, and that contradiction is worth understanding.
When, and from where
Highest in the middle of the night in March. Close enough to the celestial equator to rise from almost anywhere on Earth, and to pass overhead for anyone near 4°N.
| Latitude | Highest it gets | |
|---|---|---|
| 60°N Oslo, Anchorage | 34° | |
| 51°N London, Calgary | 43° | |
| 40°N New York, Madrid | 54° | |
| 30°N Cairo, Houston | 64° | |
| 0°N the equator | 86° | |
| 33°S Sydney, Cape Town | 53° |
Nearby in the sky
The whole catalogue →One more of the catalogue sits within five degrees, close enough to take in on the same night without moving far. Everything below is measured from M61 itself, not from the middle of Virgo.
- M49 Galaxy 4.0° apart Virgo · magnitude 8.4 · binoculars from Bortle 5 or darker
- M87 Virgo A 8.2° apart Virgo · magnitude 8.6 · binoculars from Bortle 5 or darker
- M58 Galaxy 8.3° apart Virgo · magnitude 9.7 · binoculars from Bortle 4 or darker
- M84 Galaxy 8.5° apart Virgo · magnitude 9.1 · binoculars from Bortle 5 or darker
One of 110. Positions J2000; the sky is the final authority.