The sky around Messier 90 at true scale, north up and east left, with stars to magnitude 8. The circles show the field of a low-power eyepiece and of 10×50 binoculars.
Messier 90 is a spiral galaxy in Virgo, 51 million light-years away
Messier 90 (M90, NGC 4569, PGC 042089, UGC 07786, Arp 76) is a spiral galaxy in the constellation Virgo, 51 million light-years away. It shines at magnitude 9.5 and spans 9.5′ × 4.4′ of sky, about 142,000 light-years across. It is best in a small telescope, 4 to 6 inches, and it is highest in the evening sky in May.
Galaxy: a system of billions of stars, gas and dust held together by gravity, far outside the Milky Way. Spiral galaxies have a disk with arms; elliptical galaxies are smooth, round or oval swarms of older stars.
Messier 90 is Arp 76, one of Arp's spiral galaxies with small high surface brightness companions
Halton Arp photographed it for his Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies (1966) as field Arp 76. It is in his group of spiral galaxies, Arp 1 to 101, under the category Spiral galaxies with small high surface brightness companions. The field holds 2 galaxies.
Messier 90 lies 6.6° west of Vindemiatrix, the magnitude 2.9 star. Three fingers held at arm's length cover about 5°.
Messier 90 is highest in the evening in May
The chart gives its height above the horizon at 9 pm through the year, from 60°N to 40°S. It can be seen from the whole northern hemisphere and south to about 77°S, and never sets north of 77°N.
Messier 90 is 51 million light-years away
The light seen from Messier 90 tonight left it about 51 million years ago, long before modern humans existed. It ranks 97 of 109 by distance among the 110 Messier objects. Distance source: Virgo group, Anand 2021.
