M60 (astronomy)
See also: M60
M60 (or NGC 4649 ) is a elliptic Galaxie, of E2 type, located in the constellation of the Vierge and discovered in 1779 by Johann Gottfried Koehler.
Characteristics
M60 is one of the giant elliptic galaxies of the Virgo Cluster. Being more in the east, it is in the Catalog Messier like the last of a series of three (M58, M59, and M60), which appears successively in the field of glasses pointed on this area of the sky. With weak enlargement it is in the same field as M59 (with 25 minutes of arc more in the east).
M60 was discovered, like its M59 neighbor, by Johann Gottfried Koehler on April 11th, 1779, whereas it followed the visible Comet this year. It was found in an independent way one day later by Barnabus Oriani (which missed M59), and four days later, on April 15th, 1779, by Charles Messier, which found also M58 very close. Messier described M60 like “a little apparent than the two preceding ones”.
To the distance from some 60 million light-years, its apparent diameter of 7x6 minutes of arc corresponds into linear to 120 000 light-years. Instruments of amateurs make it possible to see only its brilliant central area of 4x3 minutes of arc. Its visual magnitude connects of 8,8 in fact a brilliant galaxy absolute magnitude -22,3, corresponding to an intrinsic luminosity of 60 billion suns.
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