M100 Spiral Galaxy and It's Neighbors in Virgo
Copyright 2008 Hap Griffin
M100 is a
spectacular example of what is know as a "Grand Design Spiral Galaxy".
It is a member of the relatively nearby Virgo cluster of galaxies and is one of
the brightest face-on spirals visible to us, evidenced by the fact that it was
one of the earliest of its class first cataloged in 1781. There are
approximately 2500 galaxies in the Virgo cluster and it along with our local
group of galaxies make up what is known as the Virgo Supercluster. M100
has special significance in modern cosmology in that it contains a number of
variable brightness stars called Cepheid Variables. These giant stars vary
in brightness over a period of 1 to 100 days and provide a "standard
candle" of brightness reference since their absolute brightness is closely
related to their variability period, and can thus be used to very accurately
determine the distance to galaxies that contain them. In 1994, the Hubble
Space Telescope was used to study the Cepheid's in M100 and determine very
accurately that it's distance is 56 million light years. This value was
used to refine the value of Hubble's Constant which is used to determine the age
of the Universe based on its expansion rate.
With the mass of 160 million suns, M100 is less massive than our own Milky
Way galaxy, but is more expansive, being over 150,000 light years in
diameter. It lies at a distance of 60 million light years.
Several of M100's neighbor galaxies can be seen in this image, the most
conspicuous of which is spiral galaxy NGC 4312 at its lower left. Closer
in and at the 12 o'clock position is the irregular galaxy GSC 1445 and at the
three o'clock position, NGC 4323. Several other irregular galaxies can be
spotted towards the bottom of the frame.
Date/Location:
February 9, 2008 Griffin/Hunter
Observatory Bethune, SC
Instrument: Canon 40D Digital SLR (modified) through Orion
10" Newtonian w/ Baader MPCC
Focal Ratio: F /4.7
Guiding: Auto through Orion ED-80 w/ SBIG ST-401 on an AP-1200
mount
Conditions: Visually clear
Weather: 42 degrees
Exposure: 156 minutes total @ ISO 800 (52 x 3 min exposures)
Filters: Baader UV/IR Block internal to camera
Processing: Focused and captured with ImagesPlus V3.0. RAW to TIFF conversion, frame calibrations,
auto frame alignment, frame stacking, Digital Development, scaling and JPEG conversion with ImagesPlus
V3.5a. Finished in Photoshop CS2.