Casitas de Gila, Gila, NM, April 11 - 13, 2024
Description:
Located in the constellation Coma Berenices, M85 and NGC 4394 are members of the Virgo cluster of galaxies. M85 was discovered by Charles Messier’s colleague Pierre Méchain in 1781. It lies approximately 60 million light-years away from Earth. M85 is either an elliptical or a lenticular galaxy. Lenticular galaxies have qualities of both elliptical and spiral galaxies and are sometimes called armless spirals. M85 is interacting with two neighboring galaxies, the spiral NGC 4394 and the elliptical MCG 3-32-38. About 4 billion to 7 billion years ago, M85 likely merged with another galaxy. M85 contains approximately 400 billion stars, and most of these stars are very old. However, the central region contains relatively young stars, under 3 billion years old, and these stars are thought to have formed in a late burst of star formation activity. Like almost all spiral and elliptical galaxies, the core of M85 contains a supermassive black hole. NGC 4394 is a type SBb barred spiral galaxy and is situated about 39.5 million light-years from Earth. It was discovered on 14 March 1784 by William Herschel. (NASA, Wikipedia)
Imaging details:
Celestron 9.25” Edge HD SCT with 0.7x Focal Reducer (FL = 1650mm at f/7)
Celestron Off-axis Guider with ZWO ASI 174 mini guide camera
Losmandy G11 mount with Gemini 2 controller
ZWO ASI 2600MM Pro cooled monochrome camera (-10C)
36mm Chroma filters: Luminance, Red, Green and Blue
Software: Sequence Generator Pro, ASTAP plate solving, PHD2 guiding,
Losmandy Gemini ASCOM mount control and web client interface,
SharpCap Pro for polar alignment with a Polemaster camera,
PixInsight 1.8.9-2,
Photoshop 2024
Luminance 2 min x 164 subframes (328 min), Gain 100, Offset 64, 1x1 binning
Red 4 min x 28 subframes (112 min), Gain 100, Offset 64, 1x1 binning
Green 4 min x 25 subframes (100 min), Gain 100, Offset 64, 1x1 binning
Blue 4 min x 25 subframes (100 min), Gain 100, Offset 64, 1x1 binning
Total integration time: 10.67 hours
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