A close-up, face-on view of a spiral galaxy. Its center glows brightly. Spiral arms emerge from the galaxy’s core and wind through the round disk of the galaxy. You can spot these arms by their dark-red dust lanes and dots of brightly-shining, pink spots where stars are forming. Some faint stars are visible around the galaxy, as well as a particularly bright foreground star near the lower-left corner of the image. — Hubble · Messier 77 · ESA/Hubble & NASA, L. C. Ho, D. Thilker

Messier 77

Galaxy in Cetus · 47 million light-years

🔭 Explore Messier 77 in the 3D map →View Messier 77 images →

Type	Galaxy
Constellation	Cetus
Right ascension	2h 42m 41s
Declination	−0° 01′
Object distance	47 million light-years
Apparent magnitude	9.3
Apparent size	6.1′ (arc-minutes)
Approx. true diameter	83,398 light-years across
Also known as	M77 · NGC 1068

Messier 77 is a galaxy (also catalogued as NGC 1068) in the constellation Cetus — an island of billions of stars far beyond our own Milky Way. It was recorded by Charles Messier in his famous catalogue of 110 deep-sky objects. It spans roughly 6.1 arc-minutes on the sky. At about magnitude 9.3, it shows up well in a small backyard telescope.

Although it appears about 6.1′ wide on the sky, its real span is roughly 83,398 light-years — the difference is a measure of how far away it lies.

Observing Messier 77

Messier 77 lies in the constellation Cetus and is best placed in the evening sky around October. Its maximum altitude above the horizon depends on your latitude. Lying near the celestial equator, it can be seen from both hemispheres. A small backyard telescope will show it; binoculars may hint at it under dark skies. Note that the listed magnitude is spread across the whole object — diffuse galaxies and nebulae are often harder to see than the number alone suggests, so dark, moonless skies help a great deal.

See Messier 77 in Universe Finder

Open the interactive 3D map to fly to Messier 77 and see it in context among the real stars around it. Launch the 3D view →

Sources

Position, magnitude and angular size from the OpenNGC catalogue (Mattia Verga).
Object identity cross-referenced with SIMBAD (CDS, Strasbourg).
Image credits and the original observation source are linked with each photograph.

Related objects

Andromeda Galaxy — galaxy
Triangulum Galaxy — galaxy
Whirlpool Galaxy — galaxy
Sombrero Galaxy — galaxy
Messier 110 — galaxy