M61
Galaxy in Virgo
About
A weakly barred spiral galaxy in the Virgo Cluster, roughly 45 to 52 million light-years away depending on the source. It has a starburst nucleus and an active core, and eight supernovae have been recorded in it.
Imaging tips
- About 6′ across, so it is too small to frame: use a long focal length and a fine pixel scale.
- At roughly 6′ wide it benefits from more image scale; the Galactic Hunter frame sat M61 toward one edge, which left room for NGC 4378 and other big galaxies.
- Faint for its size at 22.2 mag/arcsec². One 12-hour Bortle 2 run was still noisy in the faint tidal tail, so plan more than that for the outskirts.
- No filter is needed: the Galactic Hunter image used none, with 5-minute subs on an f/2 scope.
- Best in March and April; it stays below 45° altitude from 50°N.
Facts
- Size
- 6′ × 6′
- Magnitude
- 9.7
- Coordinates
- RA 12h 21.9m, Dec +4° 28′
- Framing, APS-C
- longer than 4000 mm
- Framing, full frame
- longer than 4000 mm
- Best months
- Mar, Apr
- Peak altitude
- 45° from 50°N, 60° from 35°N