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M49

Elliptical Galaxy
Right Ascension 12h 29m 50s Best Seen 4/1-8/1
Declination 8° 00' 00" Magnitude 8.4
Constellation Virgo

Actual		 Compared
to Milky Way
Distance ~ 50 million ly --
Actual Brightness ~ 30 billion suns --
Diameter ~ 160 thousand ly ~ 1.6
Mass ~ 500 billion suns ~ 5
Galactic Type E4 --

What To Look For Through The Telescope

  1. Recommended eyepiece: 40mm or 80 mm.

  2. When people look through the telescope they should see a fuzzy patch of light. This is the galaxy. If they are having trouble seeing it, have them look at a star near the edge of the field, then look back to the center out of the corner of their eye.

  3. The view through the telescope will not look like photographs of galaxies they may have seen. A photograph of a galaxy may have an exposure of many hours. This long exposure brings out the galaxy’s details. Our eyes allow light to collect for only about 1/30 of a second before they refresh themselves and start over again.

M49 Information

  1. This is one of the largest and most massive galaxies known.

  2. Its appearance resembles that of a flattened basketball

  3. This galaxy has many globular clusters, perhaps as many as about 6,300 globulars.
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References
Item Updated Notes
Coordinates 2002-08-12 just “tweaked” a bit
Magnitude 2002-08-12 previous: 8.6...
from http://www.seds.org/messier/m/m049.html
Distance 2002-08-12 previous: 42 million ly...
– BUT http://www.seds.org/messier/m/m049.html
said 60 mil ly, another site said 50
Actual Brightness 2002-08-12 added “~” – BUT cannot find any info to support this
Diameter 2002-08-12 previous: 50-190 thousand ly
– BUT all found said “projected major axis of nearly 160,000
light years” at http://www.seds.org/messier/m/m049.html
Mass 2002-08-12 added “~” – BUT cannot find any info to support this
Galactic Type 2002-08-12 previous: E3 – BUT SIMBAD says “E...” and
http://www.seds.org/messier/m/m049.html says “E4"