Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Coma Berenices (Com)  ·  Contains:  Coma Pinwheel  ·  M 99  ·  NGC 4254  ·  Virgo Cluster Pinwheel
Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
M99, Coma Pinwheel galaxy, Doug Summers
M99, Coma Pinwheel galaxy
Powered byPixInsight

M99, Coma Pinwheel galaxy

Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
M99, Coma Pinwheel galaxy, Doug Summers
M99, Coma Pinwheel galaxy
Powered byPixInsight

M99, Coma Pinwheel galaxy

Equipment

Loading...

Acquisition details

Loading...

Description

Messier 99, aka the Coma Pinwheel galaxy, is a face-on grand design spiral located 56 million light-years distant in Coma Berenices.  The galaxy has a diameter of 85K light-years.   It was the 2nd object (behind M51) noticed to have spiral structure.   

I've seen many images of M99 that appear to show the galaxy slightly oblong due to the offset of the large arm, but mostly due to an apparent dearth of material on the opposite side of the galaxy (not unlike M101).   However, with enough integration time, the full structure of the galaxy does balance better.    In this image, even the gap between the large arm and the galaxy core is shown to be composed of plenty of gap-filling stars.

Comments

Revisions

  • M99, Coma Pinwheel galaxy, Doug Summers
    Original
  • Final
    M99, Coma Pinwheel galaxy, Doug Summers
    C

C

Description: adjusted background

Uploaded: ...

Sky plot

Sky plot

Histogram

M99, Coma Pinwheel galaxy, Doug Summers