Messier 49 - Elliptical Galaxy
Messier 49 is a giant elliptical galaxy of type E2 in the constellation Virgo with an apparent magnitude of 8.3mag and an elongation of 10.2'x8.3'
(arcminutes). It was discovered in 1777 even by Charles Messier, who included the galaxy in his famous catalog.
With a distance of 56 million light years it belongs to the Virgo Cluster and forms the center of the "Virgo B Subcluster", which is 4.5° or 4.4
million light years away from the actual center of the Virgo Cluster, which is defined by the even more massive galaxy Messier 87. Due to the
large number of galaxies in the vicinity of Messier 49, it is inevitable that it will interact with one of them - in this case with the inconspicuous
galaxy UGC 7636, which has resulted in a stellar stream 100,000 light-years long and 20,000 light-years wide.
Messier 49 is not only the brightest galaxy in the "Virgo B- Subcluster", but also has a higher luminosity than any other galaxy up to this distance.
The absolute brightness is M=-22.9mag, which corresponds to a luminosity of 120 billion suns. The diameter is given with nearly 160.000 lightyears,
the halo even extends to a distance of 3.5 million lightyears. Because star formation in Messier 49 has almost come to a standstill, only one supernova
could be observed so far, namely "SN 1969B" in the year of the first moon landing. M49 is surrounded by a huge halo of 5,900 globular clusters,
most of them about 10 billion years old - in two of them even candidates for black holes have been found by the detection of X-rays.
According to a 2018 paper, a supermassive black hole (SMBH) with a mass of 2.5 billion suns is found at the center of Messier 49.
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In my 20" telescope, Messier 49 appears very bright and - as is typical for an elliptical galaxy - also relatively structure-poor. The brightness increases
moderately towards the center and there is a not so bright stellar core in the center.
However, a brighter star at the eastern edge of the galaxy is conspicuous in any case. But this is not a supernova as one might think, but only a
foreground star. In the surrounding area there are some faint galaxies, but I could see one or the other only with indirect vision.
