M61



About this image.

M61 was discovered by Barnabus Oriani on May 5, 1779 when following the comet of that year, 6 days before Charles Messier's discovery, who had seen it on the same day as Oriani but mistaken it for the comet. Messier mistook it for two nights more, until he realized that it did not move. 

M61 is one of the larger galaxies in the Virgo cluster; its 6 arc minutes of diameter correspond to about 100,000 light years, similar to the diameter of the Milky Way galaxy. Its 10th magnitude corresponds to an absolute magnitude of -21.2.

(Text taken from www.seds.org)
 

Equipment

Telescope:                 12.5" Ritchey Chretien by RC Optical Systems
Mount:                      Paramount ME by Software Bisque
Instrument:               STL11000M CCD Camera by SBIG with AO-L

Exposure:                  LRGB Image totalling 11 hours exposure
Capture Software:       CCDSOFT V5
Processing:                Maxim DL/CCD, Photoshop CS, CCDStack

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