Galaxy
M59 (M59)
In Virgo (Vir) • Magnitude 10.6 • 5.0 arcminutes
Open the free AstroPlanner with M59 pre-selected, scored against your telescope, location, and the live cloud forecast.
A large elliptical galaxy in the Virgo Cluster whose central supermassive black hole weighs about 270 million times the mass of our Sun. Like most elliptical galaxies, it contains mostly old, reddish stars — the stellar equivalent of a very mature, quiet neighbourhood where very little new activity occurs.
M59 at a glance
| Catalog IDs | M59, N 4621 |
| Type | Galaxy |
| Constellation | Virgo (Vir) |
| Right ascension | 12h 41m 60s |
| Declination | +11° 39' 00" |
| Apparent magnitude | 10.56 |
| Surface brightness | 12.8 mag/arcsec² |
| Angular size | 5.0 × 3.5 arcmin |
| Max altitude at 45°N | 57° |
| Best imaging months | Dec, Jan, Feb |
How to image M59
M59 sits in the constellation Virgo at right ascension 12h 41m 60s and declination +11° 39' 00". To frame and integrate it well, AstroPlanner will compute the optimal moonless window for tonight from your location, the field-of-view fit against your sensor and focal length, the suggested total integration time given your aperture and sky Bortle class, and a cloud-aware schedule that drops it from the plan if your nearest cloud forecast spike overlaps the best altitude window. As a galaxy, M59 needs the darkest skies you can find: surface brightness, not just apparent magnitude, drives whether it will lift out of the gradient.