Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Virgo (Vir)  ·  Contains:  IC 3604  ·  M 58  ·  NGC 4579
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M58, Gary Imm
M58, Gary Imm

M58

Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
M58, Gary Imm
M58, Gary Imm

M58

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Description

This Messier Object, also known as NGC 4579, is a barred Seyfert spiral galaxy located 65 million light years away in the constellation of Virgo at a declination of +12 degrees.  It is a magnitude 9.7 galaxy which spans 5 arc-minutes in our apparent view.  This corresponds to a diameter of 100,000 light years.

This galaxy does not offer a tremendous amount of detail, partially because it is the most distant Messier object from us.  A blue star-forming inner ring is seen surrounding the barred core.  The core has several interesting dark dust lanes spiraling in towards the center.   Faint ansae are seen at each end of the bar.

M58 is one of the 4 barred galaxies in the Messier catalog (the others are M91, M95 and M109).  It is the 83rd brightest galaxy in the sky.

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