Giant Elliptical Galaxy in Virgo - M87

Imaged from Nova Scotia, Spring, 2022

Wikipedia Link

Like most elliptical galaxies, even supergiant M87 presents an amorphous and uninteresting appearance photographically. Its attraction is the presence of a relativistic jet of material emanating from the supermassive black hole residing at its center.

The jet is difficult to bring out on images but below on this page is an enlargement showing its presence.

Below, greatly enlarged and with increased contrast, the relativistic jet from the black hole at the centre of M87 can just be seen at this image scale of 0.75 a-s/px with a 14.5" instrument.

LRGB Combination
Data
Altitude at culmination 58°
Airmass Value (sec z) 1.2
Taking Camera SBIG STL-11002XM Nova Scotia spring 2022, ~mag 6.4 - @-20C
Imaging OTA AG Optics iDK 14.5"
Equivalent focal length and ratio 2465mm f/6.7
Mount Astro-Physics 1600GTO
Guiding PHD2/ONAG-XM/Lodestar X2
LRGB Total Integration Time 10 hrs L 18X10min, R12x10 min, G12x10 min, B18x10 min-Astrodon Gen 2 I series Filters. Binned 1X1
Acquisition Main Sequence Software-Sequence Generator Pro
Calibration and Stacking Darks, Flats and Bias - Stacked and calibrated with PixInsight
Reprocessed Jan 2023 PixInsight, Affinity Photo v.1.9 and Bob Franke's CCDBand-Aid

 

 

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