Messier 100 and friends

[PhotoGav]

I have finally started making my way through processing a number of data sets that I have gathered through the spring. Here is the first of them - Messier 100. It is a spiral galaxy about 56 million light years from Earth in the constellation of Coma Berenices. The distance to M100 is well established as Hubble has observed over 20 Cepheid variables within the galaxy and this has enabled the distance to be calculated with a high degree of accuracy.

 

 

 

There are all sorts of other galaxies in the field of view, which is not surprising given that M100 is a member of the Virgo Cluster of galaxies. I thought it would be interesting to highlight them and look up their distances. This is what I found:

M100 = 56 Mly
IC783A = 64 Mly
PGC 40045 = 30 Mly
PGC 4104234 = 930 Mly
PGC 4104233 = 2300 Mly
PGC 40184 = ??
NGC 4322 = 92 Mly
PGC 40214 = ??
NGC 4328 = 30 Mly
PGC 3090632 = 970 Mly

 

Technical Details

Celestron EdgeHD 8" and QSI 683-WSG8 with 31mm Astrodon Filters, all on a Mesu 200.

L = 30 x 1200s
RGB = 10 x 600s each
TOTAL = 15 hours

 

I hope you like it! I'm pretty happy with the result, except for some streaking in the upper left quadrant of the image. I have seen this before when there has been a bright star just outside the field of view, however I couldn't find a culprit this time. I only saw the streaks when processing the data and it was all too late then. Nevermind, it is what it is!

 

Clear skies all and enjoy comet NEOWISE while it's here.

[Adreneline]

Very nice and very informative - thank you Gav!

56Mly is impressive but hats off to detecting something 2300Mly away.

Thanks for sharing.

Adrian

[tomato]

A great image and an informative post, lots of detail in M100, which I have found to be quite a challenge compared to other galaxies of similar size and magnitude.

[PhotoGav]

Thank you @Adreneline and @tomato  Yes, 2.3 billion light years and a blob that is more than one pixel in size is a PB for me I think!

[alan potts]

Lovely capture and info Gav, always top draw from you!!

Alan

[PhotoGav]

Thank you @alan potts - I try my best!

[TerryMcK]

Fab work Gav

[Rodd]

One of my favorite galaxies and you did it justice.  Its a tough little core, huh?  There is a lot opf structure in there under the brightness.

[PhotoGav]

2 hours ago, Rodd said:

One of my favorite galaxies and you did it justice.  Its a tough little core, huh?  There is a lot opf structure in there under the brightness.

Thank you Rodd. Yes indeed, the core is a tricky one. It took some taming as there is plenty of detail in it - a sort of quarter pattern going on. I was torn between this rendition and reducing its brightness further. In the end I decided to leave it relatively bright as I felt that is more representative of the way the galaxy appears to us.