The Grand Spiral Galaxy M100 (NGC 4321)
Copyright: Drew Evans @drewjevans
Messier 100 (M100, NGC 4321) is a beautiful example of a grand-design spiral galaxy, and one of the brightest galaxies in the Virgo Cluster, or Coma-Virgo of Galaxies. Like a number of other members of this cluster, it is situated in the southern part of constellation Coma Berenices. M100 was discovered in 1781, and is one of the brightest member galaxies of the Virgo Cluster of galaxies. M100 is a spiral galaxy, like our Milky Way, and tilted nearly face-on as seen from earth. It resides at a distance of 56 million light-years from Earth.
M100 is among the first spiral galaxies to be discovered. The galaxy has two prominent arms of bright blue stars and several fainter arms. The blue stars in the arms are young hot and massive stars which formed recently from density perturbations caused by interactions with neighboring galaxies which are lying just outside our image. Despite its nearly perfect symmetric outline, this galaxy appears slightly asymmetric, as on the southern (lower) side of the nucleus more (or brighter) young stars have formed.
OTA: Celestron 11” Edge HD with .7x Focal Reducer
Mount: iOptron CEM120
Camera: ZWO ASI2400MC Pro (full frame)
Gain: 158
Cooling Temperature: -10 degrees celsius
Filters:
Astronomik L-3 UV-IR Block 300s x 200 = 17 hrs
Antlia ALP-T 300s x 51 = 4.25 hrs
21.25 hours total acquisition time
Auto-guiding: ZWO ASI174MM Mini and ZWO OAG-L
Auto-focusing: ZWO EAF on 2” BDS-RT Baader Diamond Steeltrack Focuser
Control: ZWO ASIAIR Pro
Calibrated in Astro Pixel Processor with flats, darks and dark flats. Processed in Pixinsight.
Imaged from Flagstaff, Arizona in class 2 Bortle skies
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