M77 · Messier 77
| Chinese name | M77 星系 |
|---|---|
| Type | Galaxy |
| Constellation | Cet |
| RA | 02h43m |
| Dec | −00° |
| Apparent magnitude | 8.9ᵐ |
| Hemisphere | Both hemispheres |
| Best season | Autumn |
| Difficulty | Moderate |
| Focal length | 长焦 1000mm+ |
About
M77 (NGC 1068) lies about 47 million light-years away in Cetus and is one of the brightest and most famous Seyfert active galactic nuclei, the prototype of the Type II Seyfert class. Its core hosts a supermassive black hole shrouded by a torus of dust, voraciously accreting matter and radiating enormous energy; in 2022 the IceCube observatory even detected high-energy neutrinos from its center, confirming the violent activity within. A compact, bright bulge is surrounded by spiral arms peppered with star-forming regions, and at roughly 170,000 light-years across it ranks among the largest Messier galaxies. Long-focal imaging brings out the sharp contrast between the brilliant core and the winding arms.