Galaxy in Leo
M96
The brightest galaxy of the Leo I group, and a visibly lopsided one — arms and dust pulled out of true by the neighbours. Two of those neighbours, M95 and M105, share the same low-power field with it.
The Leo I group is the nearest group of galaxies containing both spirals and ellipticals, which makes it the standard nearby example of a mixed environment. M96 is being pulled about by that company, and a vast ring of hydrogen — two hundred thousand light-years across — surrounds the whole group with no obvious source.
- Catalogue
- M96
- Type
- Galaxy
- Constellation
- Leo
- Distance
- 31 million light-years
- Apparent magnitude
- 9.2
- Surface brightness
- 21.7 mag/□″
- Apparent size
- 7′ × 5′
- Right ascension
- 10h 47m
- Declination
- +11.82°
- Found by
- Pierre Méchain, 1781
Small enough that its 9.2 magnitudes arrive concentrated rather than smeared: 21.7 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 5.
| 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 | Easy | Easy | Easy | Easy |
| Bortle 6 19.3 mag/□″ | No | No | Challenge | Challenge | Challenge |
| 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
The brightest of the Leo I trio and the easiest, with a distinct core and an evenly elongated glow. The asymmetry that photographs show is not really visible. Use it as the anchor for finding M95 to the west and M105 to the north-east.
When, and from where
Highest in the middle of the night in March. Passes overhead at 12°N and rises from everywhere except the far south — below 78°S it never clears the horizon.
| Latitude | Highest it gets | |
|---|---|---|
| 60°N Oslo, Anchorage | 42° | |
| 51°N London, Calgary | 51° | |
| 40°N New York, Madrid | 62° | |
| 30°N Cairo, Houston | 72° | |
| 0°N the equator | 78° | |
| 33°S Sydney, Cape Town | 45° |
Nearby in the sky
The whole catalogue →2 more of the catalogue sit within five degrees, close enough to take in on the same night without moving far. Everything below is measured from M96 itself, not from the middle of Leo.
- M95 Galaxy 42′ apart Leo · magnitude 9.7 · binoculars from Bortle 4 or darker
- M105 Galaxy 48′ apart Leo · magnitude 9.3 · binoculars from Bortle 5 or darker
- M65 Galaxy 7.9° apart Leo · magnitude 9.3 · binoculars from Bortle 5 or darker
- M66 Galaxy 8.2° apart Leo · magnitude 8.9 · binoculars from Bortle 6 or darker
One of 110. Positions J2000; the sky is the final authority.