NGC 4725 - Spiral Galaxy in Coma Berenices
|
NGC 4725 (the predominant galaxy in the image) lies approximately 40 million light years away in the constellation of Coma Berenices - Queen Berenice's Hair. It spans 100,000 light years, the same size as our Milky Way. NGC 4725 is somewhat unique in that whereas most galaxies have two arms, this has only one (a phenomenon known as spira mirabilis). The galaxy at the upper left is NGC 4747. It lies approximately 55 million light years away and is believed to have been distorted by interaction with the larger NGC 4725. The smaller spiral galaxy at the lower right is NGC 4712. This lies much further (approximately 200 million light years) than NGC 4725 and NGC 4747. |
||
| Telescope: | APM 152mm Refractor | |
| Mount: | iOptron CEM 60 | |
| Camera: | Canon 650D (Hap Griffin modified); Raw capture @ ISO 3200 | |
| Exposures: | 24 @ 5 min. (2 hrs. total) | |
| Guiding: | Orion SSAG pro on TS off-axis guider | |
| Processing: | Images were focused using Live View. They were converted to TIFF format using Camera Raw. They were aligned and combined using ImagesPlus. The final image was adjusted in Photoshop. Sharpening and noise reduction were done using Topaz Detail and DeNoise respectively. | |
| Location: | My backyard observatory in southeastern Minnesota - 4/22/17 | |
| Back to Index | ||