M98 Spiral Galaxy in Coma Berenices

Messier 98 (M98) is an intermediate spiral galaxy located in the Virgo Cluster, in the constellation Coma Berenices and is approximately 44.4 million light years from Earth. Its designation in the New General Catalogue is NGC 4192. It is estimated to contain about a trillion stars and an abundance of neutral hydrogen gas and interstellar dust.

 

This is the longest I have spent on any one target, capturing two-minute exposures for about six and a half hours with my Celestron C11.

 

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Telescope: Celestron C11-A XLT Schmidt Cassegrain OTA

Mount: SkyWatcher EQ6-R Pro

 

Controller: ZWO ASIAIR Plus

Main Camera: ZWO ASI533MC Pro at -10C

Filter: Optolong L-Pro filter

Focuser: ZWO EAF

Guide Camera: ZWO ASI174MM Mini guidecam

Guide via: ZWO OAG

 

Stacked from:

Lights 194 at 120 seconds, gain 101, temp -10C

Darks 30 at 120 seconds, gain 101, temp -10C

Flat 30 at 1.1 seconds, gain 101, temp -10C

Dark Flat 30 at 1.1 seconds, gain 101 temp -10C

 

Bortle 4 sky.

Integrated the saved frames in Astro Pixel Processor.

Processed in PixInsight

Captions added in Photoshop CS4

 

Done