Galaxy
M60 (M60)
In Virgo (Vir) • Magnitude 9.8 • 7.0 arcminutes
Open the free AstroPlanner with M60 pre-selected, scored against your telescope, location, and the live cloud forecast.
One of the most massive galaxies in the Virgo Cluster, M60 harbours a supermassive black hole estimated at about 4.5 billion solar masses. That black hole is so enormous that, if placed in our solar system, its event horizon would extend beyond the orbit of Uranus.
M60 at a glance
| Catalog IDs | M60, N 4649 |
| Type | Galaxy |
| Constellation | Virgo (Vir) |
| Right ascension | 12h 43m 41s |
| Declination | +11° 33' 00" |
| Apparent magnitude | 9.80 |
| Surface brightness | 12.5 mag/arcsec² |
| Angular size | 7.0 × 6.0 arcmin |
| Max altitude at 45°N | 57° |
| Best imaging months | Dec, Jan, Feb |
How to image M60
M60 sits in the constellation Virgo at right ascension 12h 43m 41s and declination +11° 33' 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, M60 needs the darkest skies you can find: surface brightness, not just apparent magnitude, drives whether it will lift out of the gradient.