Quote from the Deep Sky Field Guide to Uranometria 2000:
Very bright center, smooth nebulosity, faint envelope in outer parts.  Companion superimposed at 1.4 minutes North East. (This is 16.7 magnitude elliptical galaxy PGC 40659 seen below M-86 in the Kopernik image. Also, note another galaxy in the lower right of the image; it's 18.9 magnitude elliptical galaxy PGC 40691)
 
Quote by Charles Messier (March 18th, 1781): “Nebula without star in Virgo on the same parallel and very near the nebula No. 84 above: they both have the same appearance and are seen together in the same field in the telescope.”
 
Quote from Burnham's Celestial Handbook: M-86 is one of the eccentrics of the Virgo Galaxy Cluster, since it shows no red shift at all....... If it is actually a member of the Virgo aggregation, it must have an abnormally high individual space motion, and is possibly escaping from the cluster. There is the possibility, also, that M-86 is actually a foreground system, merely seen in the same direction as the Virgo Cloud, but actually much closer to us; this was the solution adopted by E. Holmberg, who found a probable distance of slightly under 20 million light years, an absolute magnitude of -19.1, and a computed mass of about 130 billion solar masses. M86 is one of the redder galaxies in this region, with an integrated spectral type of about G7.

• M-86, NGC 4406
• Magnitude: 9.8
• Constellation: Virgo
• RA: 12h 26m 11.8s
• Dec: +12° 56' 49" Epoch 2000
• Size (mins): 9.0' x 5.8'
• Classification: E3

                        Elliptical Galaxy

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George Normandin, KAS

June 1st, 2000