Top panel: core of the Virgo cluster (Mihos et al. 2005) with the positions of the FLAMES fields studied in this work (cyan circles) and in previous surveys (dotted black circles) by Arnaboldi et al. (2004) and Doherty et al. (2009). Black squares represent the Suprime-Cam survey fields used for the extraction of the photometric PN candidates (Longobardi et al. 2013). Bottom panel: schematic zoom-in of the surveyed area (black rectangles). FLAMES pointings (cyan circles) and PN candidates from the photometric survey (black asterisks; Longobardi et al. 2013) are plotted over the isophotes of the M 87 halo surface brightness (Kormendy et al. 2009). The green cross depicts M 87’s centre. North is up, East is to the left.