M61 – Galaxy in Virgo

M61 is a magnitude 9.3 spiral galaxy in the Virgo Cluster of galaxies. It measures about 100,000 light years across (the size of our Milky Way), and is about 60 million light years away. In this image, north is toward the left. In addition to dozens of galaxies visible in the background, NGC4292 (magnitude 12.2) can be seen at the top, and NGC4301 (magnitude 13.7) is at the bottom.

Exposure	Luminance   5.4 hours (65 x 5 min.) unbinned, -15°C Red   3.3 hours (40 x 5 min.) binned 2x2, -15°C Green   3.3 hours (40 x 5 min.) binned 2x2, -15°C Blue   3.3 hours (40 x 5 min.) binned 2x2, -15°C
Processing	Images reduced, aligned, and combined using CCDStack Levels and curves, slight smoothing and sharpening in Photoshop CS2
Date and Location	April 24, 25, 27, 28, & 30, 2006 Montpelier, Virginia, USA
Equipment	Celestron 9¼" at f/5.6 on a Celestron CGE equatorial mount SBIG ST-8XM camera Optec IFW filter wheel with Astrodon TruBalance filters Optec TCF-S focuser Optec Pyxis camera rotator Imaging and autoguiding with MaxIm DL 4.11

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Updated May 23, 2023