VIRGO SUPERCLUSTER

It's the nearest galaxy cluster to our Milky Way galaxy, which we can see even through small telescopes. It lies approximately 50 million light years away and includes up to 2000 galaxies.

 

I have taken this image of the cluster last weekend from the Turnov observatory with my star tracker. I used a 135mm lens and my DSLR Canon EOS 760D. I was shooting just under two hours and this arose. In the picture, you can count almost 400 galaxies, which amazed me. There are mainly elliptical and spiral galaxies, but you can see also a few irregular galaxies.

 

In the first picture, you can see a crop with the center of the cluster with galaxies M84 and M86, which you can know also as Markarian's Chain. Other interesting galaxies in the next pictures are M100, M88, M91, M99, NGC 4567, and NGC 4568.

In the penultimate image, there is a full pic I have taken and in the last image, there is an annotated version generated by astrometry.net.

 

There is also one rare object in the pic - a supernova. It lies in the galaxy called NGC 4647 next to the M60. It's the brightest supernova in the night sky currently and it's difficultly observable also through bigger telescopes. In my post, it's in the eighth image.

 

Clear skies! ✌

 

1. the center of the galaxy cluster

2.-7. annotated images of other galaxies from this cluster

8. Current supernova 2022hrs in NGC 4647

9. full image

10. annotated full image

 

Canon EOS 760D, Sigma 135mm f/2.8, AstroTrac TT320

EXIF: 41x150sec, ISO 800, f/5.6 (1 hour 43 minutes in total)

Darks: 13x

Flats: 22x

Bias: 20x

Turnov Observatory, Czech Republic (Bortle 4)

23/04/2022

Done