M99, M100

Saturday night was a moonless clear night and at that point I was unaware of a new supernova in the galaxy M65. My scope was trained a few degrees away into Coma and caught a wide field image of M99(below) & M100(right) Both on average 55 Million light years away. I was testing the setup on 5 minute subs. Unfortunatly I have no stock of 300 second dark frames so the final wide field wasn't upto my usual standards. So rather than waste it I have cropped them and here they are. Please note M100 was very close to the edge of the frame. Stars are not perfect.

M98, M99

Discovered in 1781 the M99 (centre) galaxy has a normal looking arm and an extended arm that is less tightly wound. Floating like a cloud in the blackness of space some 50 Million light years away. The upper right of the picture gives us M98 A similar looking galaxy but from our perspective it is viewed nearly edge on. A little further at 60Mly. A blue shift has been measured at 140km per second. This means this galaxy is coming our way closing in every day. Dont panic it will still take 352 Trillion 183 Billion 933 Million 935 Thousand 630 years to reach us.

This image is a composite of 2h 30m in 3 minute guides exposures at Iso 1600 Deeps sky stacker processed in Images plus 3.82 and a RC Astro Gradient xterminator applied.