Galaxy
M84 (M84)
In Virgo (Vir) • Magnitude 9.1 • 6.5 arcminutes
Open the free AstroPlanner with M84 pre-selected, scored against your telescope, location, and the live cloud forecast.
A massive elliptical galaxy at the heart of the Virgo Cluster, with an active nucleus that powers two jets of radio-emitting plasma extending well beyond its visible halo. Those jets are moving outward at a significant fraction of the speed of light, making M84's core a natural particle accelerator on a galactic scale.
M84 at a glance
| Catalog IDs | M84, N 4374 |
| Type | Galaxy |
| Constellation | Virgo (Vir) |
| Right ascension | 12h 25m 05s |
| Declination | +12° 53' 24" |
| Apparent magnitude | 9.09 |
| Surface brightness | 12.6 mag/arcsec² |
| Angular size | 6.5 × 5.5 arcmin |
| Max altitude at 45°N | 58° |
| Best imaging months | Dec, Jan, Feb |
How to image M84
M84 sits in the constellation Virgo at right ascension 12h 25m 05s and declination +12° 53' 24". 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, M84 needs the darkest skies you can find: surface brightness, not just apparent magnitude, drives whether it will lift out of the gradient.