Abell 1656 Coma Galaxy Cluster (Doug Summers)

Celestial hemisphere: Northern · Constellation: Coma Berenices (Com) · Contains: IC 3943 · IC 3946 · IC 3947 · IC 3949 · IC 3955 · IC 3959 · IC 3963 · IC 3973 · IC 3976 · IC 4026 · IC 4040 · IC 4041 · IC 4042 · IC 4045 · IC 4051 · NGC 4850 · NGC 4854 · NGC 4860 · NGC 4864 · NGC 4865 · NGC 4867 · NGC 4869 · NGC 4871 · NGC 4872 · NGC 4873 · NGC 4874 · NGC 4883 · NGC 4886 · NGC 4889 · NGC 4894 · And 10 more.

Abell 1656 Coma Galaxy Cluster, Doug Summers

Powered byPixInsight

Abell 1656 Coma Galaxy Cluster

Powered byPixInsight

Abell 1656 Coma Galaxy Cluster

The Coma Galaxy Cluster may not be very pretty, but it has "mind blowing" appeal. The cluster is on the order of 320 million light years distant, and is 20 million light years in diameter. It contains thousands of galaxies (possibly 10,000?), each galaxy of which contains billions of stars! The whole cluster is speeding away from us at a rate of ~15 million miles per hour! The two monster ellipticals in the center of the image are NGC 4874 and NGC 4889. They are each 2 to 3 times bigger than the Milky Way. The Coma Galaxy cluster is famous for identifying "dark matter" (Zwicky, 1933). It took 50 years to gain acceptance of the theory. About 90 percent of the Coma cluster's total mass is believed to be in the form of dark matter.

It's hard to believe that amateur equipment can get such good images of objects that are so distant, but here we are. This object was captured over multiple nights at the TAAA CAC dark site in Arizona, and additional frames were added at home in 2023.

Original
Final
D

D

Description: Added 3.5 hours of integration time @ f/2.2 (total is now 8.74 hours). Reprocessed with BXT, SPCC, and GHS. I'm done with this field now.... The background is smoother, but I think we're into diminishing returns on improvements.

Uploaded: ...

Celestron RASA
The OSC Club (One Shot Camera)

Galaxies
Galaxy Groups / Clusters
z-Chiricahua Astronomy Complex

Please note: The following tables are updated every 24 hours.

Distribution of astrophotographers

This table shows the number of distinct astrophotographers who have been assigned and IOTD/TP award compared to the total number of images awarded.
	Distinct awarded users	Total awarded images
Image of the day
Top picks
Top pick nominations

Distribution of subject types

This table shows the distribution of awards per subject type, compared to the popularity of images of that subject type.
	Image of the day	Top pick	Top pick nominations	Total submitted
Deep sky
Solar system
Extremely wide field
Star trails
Northern lights
Noctilucent clouds
Landscape

Distribution of data sources

This table shows the distribution of awards per data source, compared to the popularity of images acquired from that data source.
	Image of the day	Top pick	Top pick nominations	Total submitted
Backyard
Traveller
Own remote observatory
Amateur hosting facility
Public amaeteur data
Professional, scientific grade data
Mix of multiple sources
Other
Unknown

The “AstroBin Image of the Day and Top Picks”, or IOTD/TP, is a long-running system to promote beautiful, interesting, peculiar, or otherwise amazing astrophotographs, with a focus on technical excellence. Learn more.

Submitted The date and time when you submitted this image for IOTD/TP consideration.	...
Views by Submitters (available since September 19th, 2023) Every image is assigned to 50% of available Submitters. In the event that at least 80% of them don't view the image before its time in the IOTD/TP process expires, it's assigned to the other 50% of Submitters and the process begins anew.
Promotions by Submitters When 3 distinct Submitters promote the image, it moves on to the next stage of the process: evaluation for Top Pick status. This requirement, in addition to anonymization of images and distribution to only a subset of them, prevents biases and ensures that the best images are selected.
Promotions by Reviewers When 3 distinct Reviewers promote the image, it moves on to the next stage of the process: evaluation for IOTD status.
Early dismissal Staff members have a lot of images to inspect on a daily basis, and they can dismiss images if they believe they don't meet the requirements for IOTD/TP selection. If an image is dismissed 5 times, it's removed from the process. This streamlines the process and ensures that any bias present in promotions could be overruled by other staff members.

Status	Basic success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	4522171
PixInsight job	n/a
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	n/a

Image Index:

Contribution Index (beta):

Abell 1656 Coma Galaxy Cluster

Abell 1656 Coma Galaxy Cluster

Equipment

Acquisition details

Description

Comments

Revisions

D

Sky plot

Histogram

In these public groups

In these collections

		...
You have no new notifications.

Image Index:

Contribution Index (beta):

Abell 1656 Coma Galaxy Cluster

Abell 1656 Coma Galaxy Cluster

Equipment

Acquisition details

Description

Comments

Revisions

D

Sky plot

Histogram

In these public groups

In these collections

Notifications

AstroBin is in READ ONLY mode

Sorry :-(

Sorry :-(

Sorry :-(

Are you really sure?

Warning!

Warning!

Are you sure?

Report abuse

Slideshow settings

IOTD/TP stats (last [x] days)

Distribution of astrophotographers

Distribution of subject types

Distribution of data sources

Sorry

Sorry

Share

Upload new revision

Upload uncompressed source (XISF/FITS/PSD/TIFF)

Delete image and all its revisions?

Delete original image?

Delete all other versions?

Delete all revisions?

Delete this revision?

IOTD/TP stats

The following people like this image

The following people bookmarked this image

Warning

Flag malfunctioning thumbnails

Contains

Remove yourself as a collaborator

Plate-solving information