Back
to Main Page
Back
to Galaxies
Messier 61 NGC 4303
This Image is demonstrating Supernova SN2008
Imaged by Martin S. Ferlito copyright
Gstar-EX Integrating Video Camera
Information provided by seds.org
Discovered 1779 by Barnabus Oriani.
Messier 61 (M61, NGC 4303) is a considerable spiral galaxy in the
southernmost part of the Virgo Cluster of Galaxies.
M61 was discovered by Barnabus Oriani on May 5, 1779 when following the
comet of that year, 6 days before Charles Messier's discovery, who had seen it
on the same day as Oriani but mistaken it for the comet. Messier mistook it for
two nights more, until he realized that it did not move. As for a small number
of others, this object was assigned an own number, H I.139, by William Herschel,
who normally avoided to give own numbers to Messier's objects, when he observed
and cataloged it on April 17, 1786.
M61 is one of the larger galaxies in the Virgo cluster; its 6 arc minutes of
diameter correspond to about 100,000 light years, similar to the diameter of
the Milky Way galaxy. Its 10th magnitude corresponds to an absolute magnitude
of -21.2.
Six supernovae have been observed in M61:
