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<html><head> <title>Messier Object 58</title> <link rev="owner" title="Contact Maintainer" href="http://messier.seds.org/Contact/contact.html"> <meta name="keywords" content="Astronomy, Deep Sky, Messier, Messier 58, m058, m58, Spiral Galaxy, NGC 4579, Galaxy, Virgo Cluster of Galaxies, Observing, SEDS"> <meta name="keywords" content="galaxies: individual (M58, NGC 4579)"> <meta name="author" content="Guy McArthur, Hartmut Frommert, Christine Kronberg"> <meta name="distribution" content="global"> </head> <body> < <a href="m057.html">M57</a> .. M58 .. <a href="mindex.html">Messier Index</a> .. <a href="m059.html">M59</a> > <a href="http://www.maa.clell.de/Messier/D/m058.html"> <img alt="[de]" src="../Jco/flag_ger.jpg"></a> <a href="http://astrolink.mclink.it/messier/m/m058.html"> <img alt="[it]" src="../Jco/flag_it.jpg"></a> <a href="http://messier.obspm.fr/f/m058.html"> <img alt="[fr]" src="../Jco/flag_fr.jpg"></a> <center> <h1> Messier 58 </h1> <a href="../spir.html">Spiral</a> <a href="../galaxy.html">Galaxy</a> M58 (NGC 4579), type SBc, in <a href="../map/Vir.html">Virgo</a> </center> <a href="../Jpg/m58.jpg"> <img align=right border=0 alt="[m58.jpg]" src="../JpgSm/m58.jpg"></a> <table border=2 cellpadding=5 cellspacing=0> <tr> <th align=left>Right Ascension</th> <td align=center>12 : 37.7 (h:m) </td> </tr><tr> <th align=left>Declination</th> <td align=center>+11 : 49 (deg:m) </td> </tr><tr> <th align=left>Distance</th> <td align=center>60000 (kly) </td> </tr><tr> <th align=left>Visual Brightness</th> <td align=center>9.7 (mag) </td> </tr><tr> <th align=left>Apparent Dimension</th> <td align=center>5.5x4.5 (arc min) </td> </tr> </table> <!TEXT> <!draft> Discovered 1779 by Charles Messier. Messier 58 (M58, NGC 4579) is one of the four barred spiral galaxies in Messier's catalog (the others are <a href="m091.html">M91</a>, <a href="m095.html">M95</a>,and <a href="m109.html">M109</a>), although it is sometimes classified as intermediate between normal and barred spirals (e.g., in R. Brent Tully's Nearby Galaxies Catalog). It is one of the brightest galaxies in the <a href="../more/virgo.html">Virgo cluster</a>. <a href="../xtra/history/biograph.html">Charles Messier</a> discovered M58, together with the apparently nearby elliptical galaxies <a href="m059.html">M59</a> and <a href="m060.html">M60</a>, on the occasion of following the comet of 1779, and <a href="../xtra/history/m-cat.html#M58">cataloged it</a> on April 15, 1779. M58 is one of the earliest recognized spiral galaxies, and listed by <a href="../xtra/Bios/rosse.html">Lord Rosse</a> as one of 14 "spiral nebulae" discovered to 1850. Smaller telescopes let it look similar to the Virgo ellipticals, showing only its bright nucleus. Under good conditions, 4-inch or larger scopes show a halo of uneven brightness with condensations which seem to coincide with brighter areas of the spiral arms. A suggestion of M58's bar may be noticed with telescopes starting from 8-inch, as an "extension of the central nucleus in an EW direction" (Kenneth Glyn Jones). Two supernovae have been observed in M58: the type II supernova 1988A, found by Ikeya on January 18, 1988, 40" south of the nucleus at mag 13.5, and the type I supernova 1989M, discovered by Kimeridze on June 28, 1989 at mag 12.2 and 33"N, 44"W of M58's center. <li><a href="../Mdes/dm058.html">Historical Observations and Descriptions of M58</a> <li><a href="../more/m058_more.html">More images of M58</a> <li><a href="../more/m058_m2.html">Amateur images of M58</a> <li><a href="http://simbad.u-strasbg.fr/sim-id.pl?Ident=M+58"> SIMBAD Data of M58</a> <li><a href="../xtra/supp/m_NED.html#m58">NED Data of M58</a> <li><a href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/abs_connect?db_key=AST&sim_query=YES&object=M58"> Publications on M58 (NASA ADS)</a> <li><a href="../xtra/IAAC/iam058.html"> Observing Reports for M58</a> (IAAC Netastrocatalog) <li><a href="http://spider.seds.org/ngc/ngc.cgi?M58"> NGC Online data for M58</a> <!/TEXT> <hr> <a href="http://spider.seds.org/">Hartmut Frommert</a> <a href="http://www.maa.mhn.de/P/smil.html">Christine Kronberg</a> <a href="../Contact/contact.html">[contact]</a> <center> <a href="http://www.seds.org/"><img src="../Jco/seds1.jpg" alt="[SEDS]"></a> <a href="http://www.maa.mhn.de/"><img src="../Jco/maa.jpg" alt="[MAA]"></a> <a href="../Messier.html"><img alt="[Home]" src="../Jco/messier.jpg"></a> <a href="m057.html"><img alt="[M 57]" src="../Jco/backward.jpg"></a> <a href="m059.html"><img alt="[M 59]" src="../Jco/forward.jpg"></a> <a href="m062.html"><img alt="[Next Cluster]" src="../Jco/globular.ico.jpg"></a> <a href="m076.html"><img alt="[Next Nebula]" src="../Jco/nebula.ico.jpg"></a> <a href="m059.html"><img alt="[Next Galaxy]" src="../Jco/galaxy.ico.jpg"></a> <a href="../browser/brm058.html"><img src="../Jco/browser.jpg" alt="[Image Browser]"></a> <a href="http://astro.nineplanets.org/dssm/m58.html"><img src="../Jco/dssm.jpg" alt="[DSSM]"></a> <a href="../indexes.html"><img src="../Jco/sheet.ico.jpg" alt="[Indexes]"></a> <a href="../Png/m58.png"><img src="../Jco/png.jpg" alt="[PNG Image]"></a> </center> Last Modification: August 30, 2007 </body></html>