Messier 99 (M99) St Catherine's Wheel Spiral Galaxy

[menardre]

I am continuing to complete imaging of Messier objects in Coma Berenices. Last night I imaged M99. I knew that clouds would be coming in sometime during the night but I gave it a shot anyway. As it turned out, I was able to image from around 8:45 until just after 1AM. I acquired 120 images (2 minutes, binned 1x1, -10C, gain 100) using 11 inch SCT and ZWO ASI2600 OSC. The last 4 images were in clouds, so 'only' 116 images were used.

M99 is one of the brighter spiral galaxies in the Virgo Cluster and appears almost face-on. Messier 99 is a grand design spiral, completely unbarred and with two giant spiral arms. One of the spiral arms is normal and the other appears distorted.
M99 is slightly asymmetric in shape, with the nucleus shifted from the galaxy’s center, likely as a result of interactions with other galaxies in the Virgo Cluster.
It is receding from us at an unusually high velocity of 2,407 km/s. This is the highest redshift recorded for any Messier object.
Messier 99 was one of the first spiral galaxies in which a spiral pattern was recognized. The spiral pattern was first observed by William Parsons, 3rd Earl of Rosse, in the spring of 1846.

I used PixInsight for image processing, only using my standard set of processes.

Roger

M99 Spiral Galaxy.jpg (7.45 MiB) Viewed 16587 times

[NGC7000]

Excellent image. Love your galaxy hunting results.

Tom

[menardre]

Tom
Thanks... I am trying to get all of the Messier objects in Coma Berenices ... mostly galaxies.

Roger