Coma Berenice's, in mythology Queen Berenice's blond locks given up to Aphrodite in return for her husband Ptolemy's safe return. Long ago I had dark hair, which in my 30s, became flecked with grey, and now in my 50s, IS grey (in truth becoming more white than grey). Some say ‘distinguished’, others nearly extinguished … at least I still have my hair!   Berenice’s hair is full of ancient grey highlights, we will have to wait and see whether these galaxies have already been extinguished.

NGC 4889, a super-giant elliptical galaxy is the brightest in the Northern Coma Group, containing over 2000 galaxies. It is over 300 million LY away, with a halo extending over a million LY, and has a super-massive black hole at its core, with an estimated event horizon of 130 billion km - all a bit mind-boggling! NGC 4874 is another giant elliptical 10 x the size of the Milky-Way, and 350 mLY away. NGC 4981 is a barred spiral with arms full of blue star streams all but invisible in my wide field. I've included a negative (reverse) image in Rev B which I find makes it easier to see the faint fuzzies, and an annotated version in Rev C. Revision D (final) is 'pulled back' for a cleaner result.

With just three hours of data to process, and a rather soft focus, this image really does not do justice to this dense galaxy field. I have just installed a Waveshare HAT on my Rpi4, and a helpful indi script (courtesy K. Ross) to operate a stepper motor for auto-focusing. Once I've designed a bracket to attach this to my Zenithstar, I'm hoping for precise focus every time. In the meantime, trial and error with a home-made Bahtinov mask, although fine focus tools built into image capture software, do make this easier. 

With a couple more clear nights forecast this week, I may wheel out both scopes, and see if I can eek out galaxy season a bit longer. Wishing you clear skies.

[Refs Wikipedia].