Messier 98 (a.k.a. NGC 4192) is an intermediate spiral galaxy located about 44.4 million light-years away in the constellation Coma Berenices and about 6° to the east of the bright star Denebola making it easy to locate. Most galaxies are redshifted meaning they are receding from us, however, M98 has a blue shift and is approaching us at about 140 km/s (source: wikipedia).
Messier 99 (a.k.a. NGC 4254) is an unbarred spiral galaxy approximately 50 million light-years away next to M98 in the constellation Coma Berenices. The galaxy has a normal looking arm and an extended arm that is less tightly wound (source: wikipedia).
This was the first object I was able to get any exposures of in over two weeks due to cloudy weather. The night started with clouds but eventually cleared up. Unfortunately it was not completely clear. I took over two hours of exposure, however, a very faint high cloud layer moved in during the evening. When it was all said and done I wound up 45 minute of exposure. The nice thing about astrophotography of deep sky objects is you can go back to them at a latter date and add more exposure.
Numbers 71 and 72 on my Messier catalog.
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