I set out to image NGC 4889, or Caldwell 35, Coma-B, a supergiant elliptical galaxy that is truly far, far away — roughly 300 million light-years, or about 1,750,000,000,000,000,000,000 miles.  It's in the center of my image as I chose its coordinates for centering.  In researching the target in Stellarium I saw that there appeared to be other small galaxies among the stars.  I didn't realize how many galaxies would be in the small frame of my 840mm telescope. What I had stumbled into was another galaxy cluster.  Must like my previous Virgo galaxy cluster image.  

A galaxy cluster is a large structure in the universe consisting of hundreds or thousands of galaxies that are gravitationally bound together. The large number of galaxies in a cluster are packed close together, such as in the Coma Cluster. Clusters make some of the largest, and densest structures in the universe. Clusters, groups, and some isolated galaxies can all be part of even larger structures called superclusters; at the largest scales in the visible universe, superclusters are gathered into filaments and walls surrounding vast voids. This structure is often referred to as the ‘cosmic web’.

Caldwell 35 is an E4 supergiant elliptical galaxy. The brightest galaxy within the northern Coma Cluster, it is located at a median distance of 94 million parsecs (308 million light years) from Earth. At the core of the galaxy is a supermassive black hole that heats the intra-cluster medium through the action of friction from infalling gases and dust. The gamma ray bursts from the galaxy extend out to several million light years of the cluster.  The light from Caldwell 35 that reaches Earth today is 300 million years old.  By observing Caldwell 35, the most distant object in the Caldwell catalog, we have the opportunity to peer back in time and see its corner of the cosmos as it was long ago.

As the largest and the most massive galaxy easily visible to Earth, NGC 4889 has played an important role in both amateur and professional astronomy, and has become a prototype in studying the dynamical evolution of other supergiant elliptical galaxies in the more distant universe.

Astronomers classify galaxies based on their appearance into three main classes: elliptical, spiral, and irregular galaxies, with further definition as elliptical, lenticular, barred lenticular, spiral, barred spiral and irregular.

This photo is the result of 159 180s subs taken though a SW Esprit 120ED & ASI2600MC camera aboard a SW Eq6r Pro mount.  Image acquisition using Astrophotography Tool (APT).  Processing in PixInsight.