TheSkySearchers

Saw this recently playing in Stellarium.

From Wikipedia: Messier 100 (also known as NGC 4321) is a grand design intermediate spiral galaxy in the southern part of the mildly northern Coma Berenices. It is one of the brightest and largest galaxies in the Virgo Cluster and is approximately 55 million light-years from our galaxy, its diameter being 107,000 light years, and being about 60% as large. It was discovered by Pierre Méchain in 1781[a] and 29 days later seen again and entered by Charles Messier in his catalogue "of nebulae and star clusters". It was one of the first spiral galaxies to be discovered and was listed as one of fourteen spiral nebulae by Lord William Parsons of Rosse in 1850. NGC 4323 and NGC 4328 are satellite galaxies of M100

89 x 120 seconds at 180 gain. 10 Darks, 30 Flats, 30 Flat Darks.


Regards

Graeme

Wow Graeme! Nice work.

Love the arms!

Larry

helicon wrote: ↑Sat Apr 17, 2021 6:28 pm Wow Graeme! Nice work.

Larry 1969 wrote: ↑Sat Apr 17, 2021 6:32 pm Love the arms!

Larry

Cheers! It is a fine looking galaxy. And what's the odds of a clear night on a Friday without too much Moon! At 3 hours it's the longest exposure I've done. It was my first meridian flip too! DSS didn't seem to mind. I tweaked the gain up to 180 to see how that would go, it doesn't seem to have increased noise significantly.

Regards

Graeme

I remember my first meridian flip...
Standing right beside my mount with my finger on the power switch!

Larry

Very nice M100 Graeme!

Glad it all went well and you had a very nice night out.

Really pretty galaxy! Fine capture sir!

So beautiful! Very nice, Graeme!

nice shot , thx

Larry 1969 wrote: ↑Sat Apr 17, 2021 6:49 pm I remember my first meridian flip...
Standing right beside my mount with my finger on the power switch!

Larry

It was a click the pause button and slew button at about 5 past the meridian. Then a manual plate solve, focus and off again! NINA can do all that automatically but I've not got my head round that yet!

Juno16 wrote: ↑Sat Apr 17, 2021 6:56 pm Very nice M100 Graeme!

Glad it all went well and you had a very nice night out.

Really pretty galaxy! Fine capture sir!

It was the most fun I have had in ages!

StarBru wrote: ↑Sat Apr 17, 2021 6:58 pm So beautiful! Very nice, Graeme!

It is a fine looking galaxy! With a couple of satellites too.

messier 111 wrote: ↑Sat Apr 17, 2021 6:59 pm nice shot , thx

Cheers

Regards

Graeme

Wonderful! Well done, Graeme!

Congratulations Graeme on having your image selected as todays TSS APOD!

app.php/article/4-18-2021-tss-astrophot ... of-the-day

Great image and congrats on the APOD! :cool:

I have played with the idea of getting into astrophotography someday. Due to the cost and patience it takes I'm still happily living vicariously through all of you imagers. I still have a lot of visual goals to achieve so I'll give it another 10 years or so.

Beautiful image Graeme. Congrats on a beautiful capture and the TSS APOD.

Congrats Graeme on winning the APOD for today!

Gordon wrote: ↑Sun Apr 18, 2021 5:27 pm Congratulations Graeme on having your image selected as todays TSS APOD!

app.php/article/4-18-2021-tss-astrophot ... of-the-day

Oh wow! Cheers.

Wasn't expecting that!

Regards

Graeme

A grand wheel with a most interesting centre, it's wonderful! Thanks, Graeme, for sharing and congrats on the apod.

Beautiful shot Graeme! Love the details in the spiral arm! And congrats for the APOD!

A question for you - did you shoot at the native f/10? 120 sec subs sound short for f/10 ...

Hi Graeme. A wonderful M100 image from you. Excellent contrast and nice spiral arms. And the nearby NGC 4323 and NGC 4328 galaxies show up well too. Thanks for sharing this work with us Graeme, and congratulations on winning the TSS APOD Award today.

Congratulation on the TSS APOD award.

That's a really nice image ... and not an easy one to capture.

Very well done.

BABO

jon.s wrote: ↑Sun Apr 18, 2021 8:14 pm Beautiful shot Graeme! Love the details in the spiral arm! And congrats for the APOD!

A question for you - did you shoot at the native f/10? 120 sec subs sound short for f/10 ...

Well spotted! The whole thing was a bit experimental. The focal length was unchanged at f10 2350mm. I thought it would be interesting to try a shorter exposure with a higher gain. The unity gain for the camera is 120, I usually use 125 but tweaked it up to 180 for this one. The histogram was off the left side but the image is slightly dark. Perhaps 180 or 240 exposure and 180 gain will be the next one to try.

Regards

Graeme