M99

Located 50 million light years in the Virgo cluster, M99 is relatively large and bright galaxy and was one of the first in which a spiral pattern was observed. One of the spiral arms is distorted and the other normal, giving an overall asymmetric appearance.  The distortions of the spiral arms together with a very high (3x normal) star formation rate are evidence of a past encounter, probably with another galaxy.

 I was quite pleased to capture some detail and colours of the spiral arms and the HII regions.  For the bright core, I decided to use high dynamic range compression to enhance visibility and colour.

 If you look closely at the background you can also see quite a few galaxies, I particularly like the one to the right of the bright orange star which shows some structure. 

The LRGB image represents 16 hours integration time and was taken with my Esprit 150.