NGC4486 · Messier 87

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Credit Event Horizon Telescope, uploader cropped and converted TIF to JPG · CC BY 4.0

Chinese name	M87 星系
Type	Galaxy
Constellation	Vir
RA	12h31m
Dec	+12°
Apparent magnitude	8.6ᵐ
Hemisphere	Both hemispheres
Best season	Spring
Difficulty	Moderate
Focal length	长焦 1000mm+

About

M87 (NGC 4486) lies about 53 million light-years away at the heart of the Virgo Cluster and is a supergiant elliptical galaxy of staggering mass, hosting over ten thousand globular clusters, far more than the Milky Way's few hundred. Its central supermassive black hole weighs about 6.5 billion solar masses and launches a blue relativistic-plasma jet roughly 5,000 light-years long, a famous feature noted as early as 1918. In 2019 the Event Horizon Telescope used this black hole to capture humanity's first-ever image of a black hole. Long-focal deep exposures can record that famous blue jet, making it the most scientifically legendary target in the Virgo Cluster.