Messier 99 is a classified as a grand spiral galaxy, but has the unusual feature of one dominant arm. This galaxy spans about 83,000 light years across and contains a little less mass than our own galaxy weighing in at only 100 thousand million solar masses. Such a lightweight! M99 is also part of the Virgo cluster of galaxies which becomes visible each spring. A notable feature of the Virgo cluster is they're all about 65 million light years away. In other words, if you were on a planet in M99 looking at Earth with a very powerful telescope right now, you would see dinosaurs walking the Earth.
Photo Details
April 24 and 30, 2020
Orion 8" Astrograph on VX Mount
SBIG STF-8300C Camera
Baader MPC Mark III Multi-Purpose Coma Corrector
Skyglow filter
58 subframes at 3 minutes/frame
Total Exposure Time = 2 hours 54 minutes
Image Acquisition in CCDOps
Image Stacking in Deep Sky Tracker
Image Processing in PhotoShop
Image Acquisition in CCDOps
Image Stacking in Deep Sky Tracker
Image Processing in PhotoShop
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