Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Virgo (Vir)  ·  Contains:  11 Com  ·  12 Vir  ·  13.37  ·  17 Vir  ·  20 Vir  ·  24 Com  ·  25 Com  ·  27 Com  ·  27 Vir  ·  28 Com  ·  29 Com  ·  30 Vir  ·  30 rho Vir  ·  31 Vir  ·  31 d01 Vir  ·  32 Vir  ·  32 d02 Vir  ·  33 Vir  ·  34 Vir  ·  404 Arsinoe  ·  6 Com  ·  HD105845  ·  HD105865  ·  HD105928  ·  HD105967  ·  HD106026  ·  HD106027  ·  HD106088  ·  HD106091  ·  HD106156  ·  And 597 more.
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Virgo Cluster Mosaic and Galaxy Tour in 240 Megapixel, Mau_Bard
Virgo Cluster Mosaic and Galaxy Tour in 240 Megapixel, Mau_Bard

Virgo Cluster Mosaic and Galaxy Tour in 240 Megapixel

Revision title: v2

Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
Virgo Cluster Mosaic and Galaxy Tour in 240 Megapixel, Mau_Bard
Virgo Cluster Mosaic and Galaxy Tour in 240 Megapixel, Mau_Bard

Virgo Cluster Mosaic and Galaxy Tour in 240 Megapixel

Revision title: v2

Equipment

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Acquisition details

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Description

A few years ago I used to spend freezing nights outside, star-jumping and searching the Virgo galaxies, which appeared in my binocular as small dots.
I consider now a privilege to have all of them available in a single image, and not any more as tiny dots but as full fledged galaxies! Not to mention the warmer environment.

I tried to get the big picture without losing the detail. Therefore I drizzled x2 each of the three panels, and I assembled them in a mosaic that resulted 240 Million pixels large.
This made the processing extremely difficult on my PC: such a huge file requires a really large working memory to be handled by PI. I had devise alternative paths to overcome the hurdles that presented in sequence. The processing has been slow and boring.
To complete the story, once I was finished with the work, Pixinsight issued an "out of memory" error, in the very moment I was storing the final work. This way PI corrupted the already saved project. Saving individual files was no more possible. End of the story: I had to start again all the work from the beginning.

Guests
There are two unexpected yet welcome guests in this picture: the comet 62P/Tsuchinshan and the asteroid Thalia. The first is the evident green blog close to the field center, the latter is a tiny trail in the upper right quadrant. Both are highlighted in the annotated revision. A complete description of 62P has been published by WAA, the Vienna Astronomy Association here.

The Galaxy Tour
To make the details better visible, I excerpted 15 cuts from the main image that are loaded here as revisions, and are proposed as a Galaxy Tour. 62P has been added as a bonus. As regards the pictures quality, please consider that these are small cut-outs of a 135mm lens recording. For better (hopefully) resolution: I have previously recorded some of these subjects with my 200/1000mm Newton: Markarian Chain Mosaic, Anti Markarian, and M85, M87 and Jet, Yet looking the gallery here makes me want to take further images with larger focals.
The Junction Table (revision B), helps locating the objects, that are anyway presented in north to south order.

Virgo Cluster Highlights
The Virgo Cluster is a large cluster of galaxies whose center is 53.8 ± 0.3 Mly (16.5 ± 0.1 Mpc) away in the constellation Virgo. Comprising approximately 1300 (and possibly up to 2000) member galaxies, the cluster forms the heart of the larger Virgo Supercluster, of which the Local Group (containing our Milky Way galaxy) is a member. It spans both Virgo and southern portion of Coma.
The cluster subtends a maximum arc of approximately 8 degrees.
Its brightest member is the elliptical galaxy Messier 49; however its most famous member is the elliptical galaxy Messier 87, which is located in the center of the cluster.
The cluster is an aggregate of separate sub-clumps:
- Virgo A, centered on M87
- a second one centered on the galaxy M86
- Virgo B, centered on M49
- Virgo C centered on the galaxy M60
- the LVC (Low Velocity Cloud) subclump, centered on the large spiral galaxy NGC 4216, west of M87
The giant elliptical galaxy M87 contains a supermassive black hole, whose event horizon was observed by the Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration in 2019. The relativistic jet of M87 BH is so relevant that is even visible in our image here.

The Virgocentric flow (VCF) is the preferred movement of Local Group galaxies towards the Virgo cluster caused by its overwhelming gravity, which separates bound objects from the Hubble flow of cosmic expansion. The VCF can refer to the Local Group's movement towards the Virgo Cluster, since its center is considered synonymous with the Virgo cluster, but more tedious to ascertain due to its much larger volume. The excess velocity of Local Group galaxies towards, and with respect to, the Virgo Cluster are 100 to 400 km/s. This excess velocity is referred to as each galaxy's peculiar velocity.

As with many other rich galaxy clusters, Virgo's intracluster medium is filled with a hot, rarefied plasma at temperatures of 30 million kelvins that emits X-Rays. Within the intracluster medium (ICM) are found a large number of intergalactic stars (up to 10% of the stars in the cluster), including some planetary nebulae. It is theorized that these were expelled from their home galaxies by interactions with other galaxies. The ICM also contains some globular clusters, possibly stripped off dwarf galaxies, and even at least one star formation region.

Comments

Revisions

  • Virgo Cluster Mosaic and Galaxy Tour in 240 Megapixel, Mau_Bard
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    Virgo Cluster Mosaic and Galaxy Tour in 240 Megapixel, Mau_Bard
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B

Title: Junction Table

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C

Title: Mosaic Annotated

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Q

Title: M85 and NGC4394

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Title: M100

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Title: M91 M88

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Title: Markarian Chain

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Title: NGC4216

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Title: M90 M89 M58

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Title: M87 and its Back Hole Relativistic Jet

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Title: M60 and M59

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Title: Siamese Twins

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Title: Comet 62P

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Title: The "C" Shape

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Title: NGC4442 to NGC4411

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Title: M49 NGC4535 NGC4526

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BD

Title: NGC4365 and Friends

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Title: M61 and the NGC4261 galaxies

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Title: v2

Description: Darker Background

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Title: Junction Table v2

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Title: Annotated v2

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Sky plot

Sky plot

Histogram

Virgo Cluster Mosaic and Galaxy Tour in 240 Megapixel, Mau_Bard