M 87 Deep sky · Galaxy in Virgo · M 87 · NGC 4486
Virgo Galaxy
The giant galaxy at the heart of the Virgo Cluster, and home of the first black hole ever photographed — a dark ring in an image released in 2019.
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- Type
- Galaxy
- Designations
- M 87 · NGC 4486
- Constellation
- Virgo
- Apparent magnitude
- 9.0
- Apparent size
- 7′ × 7′
- Position (J2000)
- RA 12h 31m · Dec +12° 23′
The full Moon, about 31′ across, is 4.4 times as wide. The Sun passes 14° from it around late September, and for about 8 days of the year it sits within 15° of the Sun, lost in its glare.
When to see it
On the night of Sat 27 Mar 2027, when it is highest around midnight, on each city’s own clock:
| From | Rises | Highest | Sets |
|---|---|---|---|
| London GMT | 17:09 | 00:11 · 51° | 08:14 |
| New York EDT | 18:24 | 01:06 · 62° | 07:48 |
| Singapore GMT+8 | 19:17 | 01:17 · 79° | 07:17 |
| Sydney GMT+11 | 19:42 | 01:08 · 44° | 06:33 |
Common questions
- Can I see it from 50° north?
- Yes. It rises and sets, and at its highest it stands 52° up in the south.
- Can I see it from 35° south?
- Yes. It rises and sets, and at its highest it stands 43° up in the north.
- When is the best time of year to see it?
- Around late March, when it stands opposite the Sun and is highest at midnight. It comes round about two hours earlier each month, so by late June it is highest in the early evening, and in late December not until the hours before dawn.
- How bright is it?
- Magnitude 9.0 in total, but that light is spread over 7′ × 7′ of sky: on average 21.8 magnitudes per square arcsecond. Against a dark country sky that average stands out; a city’s glow drowns all but its brightest parts.
- Naked eye, binoculars or telescope?
- Binoculars. At magnitude 9.0 it is past the eye, but a 50 mm pair under a dark sky reaches about magnitude 11.0.
Science
A jet of matter shoots out of its core at nearly the speed of light, thousands of light-years long. Heber Curtis saw it in 1918 and called it a curious straight ray.
Look for
A small telescope shows a round glow brightening to the middle. Around it swarm more than ten thousand globular clusters, far more than the Milky Way has.
Look for
From 50° north it climbs to 52°; from 35° north it climbs to 67°; from the equator it climbs to 78°; from 35° south it climbs to 43°.
Look for
Magnitude 9.0 against the faintest star each can show: the eye under a city sky, 4.5 (4.5 short); the eye under a dark country sky, 7.0 (2.0 short); 50 mm binoculars under that dark sky, 11.0 (2.0 to spare); a 100 mm telescope there, 12.5 (3.5 to spare). Those limits are for a point of light; its light is spread over its whole size, so it needs some of that margin in hand. Through 7×50 binoculars, whose field is about 7.1° across, it spans 2% of the field’s width; through a 100 mm telescope at 50×, a field about 1° across, it spans 12% of the field’s width.