M60 Observation Details
M60 Daily Motion
M60 will rise before twilight begins, at 20:06, and will reach 5° elevation by the time twilight commences at 20:34. It will reach its transit at 64° by 02:42 and gradually fade away as the night ends at 06:45, maintaining an elevation of around 30°.M60 will be visible until July, 30, when it will move too close to the Sun. During this time, its proximity to the Sun will cause it to disappear from the night sky, making it unobservable for a while.
M60 Visibility Timetable on March 15
M60 Rise and Set Timetable
| Time | Elevation | |
| M60 rise | 20:06 | |
| Moon Rise, 99.5% illuminated | 20:15 | 2° |
| Astrosession begin | 21:05 | 11° |
| M60 transit | 02:42 | 64° |
| Astrosession end | 06:14 | 36° |
| Civil sunrise | 07:15 | 24° |
| Sunrise | 07:43 | 19° |
| Moon Set | 08:15 | 12° |
| M60 set | 09:17 |
Track M60 Position Throughout the Night
← Sat, 15 March 2025 →
| Time | |
| Altitude | |
| Azimuth |
M60 - Elliptical Galaxy
M60 is an elliptical galaxy located in the constellation Virgo. It was discovered by Johann Gottfried Koehler in 1779 and later cataloged by Charles Messier. M60 is one of the brightest and largest elliptical galaxies in the Virgo Cluster of galaxies.
M60 spans about 120,000 light-years across and contains a massive population of old stars. The galaxy is approximately 55 million light-years away from Earth and has an apparent magnitude of 9.8, making it visible with a small telescope.
M60 Image Gallery
DSS Blue
DSS Red
DSS Near-Infrared
DSS Composite image
The photos are taken from the Digitized Sky Survey 2 (DSS2), which was produced at the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) under NASA contract, using data from the UK Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC), the European Southern Observatory (ESO), and the National Geographic Society-Palomar Observatory Sky Survey (POSS II).
Special thanks to the National Optical Astronomy Observatory (NOAO), the Royal Observatory, Edinburgh, and the California Institute of Technology for their significant contributions.
Finder Chart for M60
| Object name | M60 |
| Field of view | |
| Limiting magnitude | |
| M60 coordinates | 12.72777, 11.55269 |
| Center coordinates | 12.72777, 11.55269 |
M60 Passage Through Night
Current position of M60
| Time | 14:49 |
| Latitude | 37.751 |
| Longitude | -97.822 |
| M60 elevation | -41° |
| M60 Azimuth | -2° |
Annual motion of M60
| Date | Sat, 15 March 2025 |
| Twighlight start | 21:00 |
| Twighlight end | 06:09 |
| Twighlight duration | 9h 9m |
| Rise | 20:03 |
| Set | 09:13 |
| Elevation at transit | 64° |
| Transit time | 02:38 |
| Equatorial coordinates | RA: 12h 43m 39s", Dec: 11° 33' 09s |
| Magnitude | 9 |
| Constellation | Virgo |
The graph is structured with the vertical axis showing the hours of the day, ranging from 12 AM to 12 AM the next day, while the horizontal axis spans each day of the year.
The reddish shaded area indicates the periods when the M60 is above the horizon, visible to observers. The white line marks the times when the celestial object reaches its highest point in the sky each day, known as the transit.
Data Credits
The nebulae information on this page is sourced from the OpenNGC project, developed by Matteo Verga. OpenNGC provides detailed data on the NGC catalog, which is a valuable resource for exploring deep-sky objects such as nebulae.
For more details or to contribute to OpenNGC, visit the official GitHub repository: OpenNGC on GitHub.