Virgo Galaxies wide field

[sdbodin]

Final image from last week's good weather, a 3x4 degree field in the center of the Virgo cluster. Imaged concurrent with the Bigdog shooting M87, posted last week, but with my Deadcat 250mm Vivtar f4.5 telephoto. Two questions were proposed in shooting small galaxies with a wide field lens. First, how many fuzzies would show up? Second, could one actually differentiate between spirals and ellipticals or were they all just fuzzy blobs. Well, with only 44 minutes of exposure, many dozens appeared, and the types and shapes are well defined. Nice to see what a 55 mm aperture can do with a modern cmos camera. My youth looking thru the old 60 mm Unitron certainly did not see this.

A little guide to what is what, Markarian's Chain is bumped up to the upper right, with M84 right on the edge, I like that the 'Eyes' show some of that spray of stars. M87 is in the right center a bit below the center line, guess that the Deadcat is not co-aligned with the Bigdog that well, it is just bolted on top by eyeball. The nice spirals M90 and M58 show in the left part with the Siamese Twins on the lower edge. I'll leave identification of the numerous others to the interest viewers.

Specifics, ancient Vivitar 250mm f4.5 telephoto lens, Asi1600MC-cool OSC camera, 22/2min exposures, gain 200, offset 50, temp -20C thru Baader fringe killer filter. Captured and stacked in Nebulosity, final in PS CS5 with Carboni tools. Final posted image 50% full size, make sure to click twice on the posted pic and pan around to see the sights.

Final thoughts, Those Redcat 250s will probably take a better picture, but at $50, I'll stick with my Deadcat.
Steve

[Makuser]

Hello Steve. What a beautiful wide field image. And, just look at all of those galaxies in your capture. This is a very nice job Steve, and thanks for putting this up on here for us to enjoy.

[JayTee]

Really nice Steve,

My count was 31 (conservatively). Not seen that many on a single image in quite a while.

Nicely done,
JT

[bobharmony]

That is a pretty amazing image, Steve. Thanks for sharing with us!

Bob

[sdbodin]

Really nice Steve,

My count was 31 (conservatively). Not seen that many on a single image in quite a while.

Nicely done,
JT

Thanks JT,
OK, I haven't counted, so consider the gauntlet tossed!

My count 61 on one quick pass over the image. But, I have the original in full size, so that's not a fair fight. But, then again, all is fair in...

Thanks again,
Steve

[Astrovetteman]

REALLY nice wide field shot Steve!! Man there's a whole bunch of "faint fuzzies" in there!!
Great Job!!
Tom

[STEVE333]

That's a beauty Steve. The different types of galaxies show up nicely. Thanks for sharing.

Steve