M-60 (NGC-4649) is a giant elliptical galaxy located in the constellation of Virgo. It is 55 million light years from Earth, and is 120,000 light years in diameter, containing over 400 billion stars, and, at its center, a supermassive black hole with a mass of 4.5 billion stars. Together with its companion, the spiral galaxy NGC-4647, it forms a pair known as Arp 116. M-60 was discovered in 1779 by Johann Gottfried. Charles Messier added it to his catalog as number 60 three days later.
This image, acquired on June 9, 2021 is a 1 hour 16 minute integration of 4 minute exposures through the Celestron C-11 at f/2 using the HyperStar III imaging system and the ZWO ASI 071MC color CMOS camera,
operating at -10 degrees below ambient temperature and binned 1 X 1. Guided, captured and combined using Maxim DL5 Pro. Post processed using PhotoShop CS2, Gradient XTerminator, StarShrink, Carboni's Astro Tools and NoiseWare.