| Description | After a break of 3 weeks, three Méchain galaxies (M98-M100) recorded April 13, 1781: "Nebula without star, of an extremely faint light, above the northern wing of the Virgin [Virgo], on the parallel & close to the star no. 6, fifth magnitude, of the hair of Berenice [Coma Berenices].... M. Méchain saw it on Mar 15, 1781." <--> This is a not quite edge-on view of a spiral galaxy. I'd been anxious to complete capturing all of the Messier Virgo / Leo / Coma galaxies before the end of Galaxy Season. This was the culmination of a couple of clear nights observing in only fair transparency with a nearly full moon, in this case only about 40° off the moon. SharpCap's native images are quite low contrast as a result, but we were able to enhance them in Affinity Photo to make them usable. We opted for Bin2 in order to speed up capture. |
