M094

M94 is a starburst galaxy in Canes Venatici about 15 million light-years distant. Its core had a major starburst about 10 million years ago which turned the center into a flocculent spiral. Outside of that is a disk region of older stars with hints of a few new stars in thin lines. Unfortunately, my color data was weak due to fog, especially in blue so I didn't pick this up well. Coming off this is a faint somewhat blue (too blue in my image due to underexposure and my attempt to correct for the fog) spiral that looks rather ring-like but really is a spiral that unfortunately I cut off at the south end. The arm continues south out of the image for a bit. It also goes north but I didn't pick that up due to underexposure. This was taken back when I was first going digital and my technique was poor. I do need to revisit this one with a lot more time on a night of better transparency.

While the galaxy appears rather large the part of the outer region I picked up is about 60,000 light-years in diameter. Long exposures show it to be about 80,000 light-years. It is classified at NED as (R)SA(r)ab; Sy2 LINER. It was discovered by Pierre Méchain on March 22, 1781. Messier observed and recorded it 2 days later on March 24.

You can read more on this one at: http://messier.seds.org/m/m094.html

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=4x10' RGB=2x10', STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for M094

M095

I finally had clear skies with M95 not too far from the meridian the early morning of April 17 UT (evening of the 16th for those in the Americas). M95 in Leo is a rather common target for small telescopes. I found two different estimates for the distance to M95. Most sources say 38 million light-years but others say 32.6 ± 1.4 million light-years. Wikipedia gives BOTH distances in the same article without realizing the discrepancy. By redshift alone, it is 50 million light-years distant but that has a very wide error bar that easily includes either shorter distances. I'll get back to M95 but first the supernova.

SN 2012aw is a type IIP supernova. The "P" stands for "Plateau." The light curve has a plateau near maximum brightness. It fades only very slowly for a while before starting a normal, much faster brightness decline. This was fortunate for me as I was clouded out for weeks before getting clear skies in the early evening letting me get this image on April 17 UT. It was still at magnitude 13.0 by my rather crude measurement. Maximum was only slightly brighter so it was still in the plateau period when I took the image. Probably still is but the clouds returned so I can't verify this. A type II supernova is also called a core-collapse supernova. The massive star has converted hydrogen to helium then helium to carbon and oxygen. These are fused into other heavier elements such as neon, sodium, magnesium aluminum silicon sulfur as well as other elements. These, in turn, are fused to even heavier elements such as nickel which decays to iron. Iron can' fuse so the core suddenly can't create the heat needed to support itself against gravity and collapses into degenerate matter but when that is above a limit, about 1.4 times the mass of the sun, even that can't stand the gravitational pressure and total collapse occurs. After this, things get really complicated. You can read about it at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_II_supernova#Core_collapse

While a search of old high-resolution images of the galaxy tried to find the star that exploded prior to the event, I've not seen anyone reporting it has been found. So the idea it was a red giant, while likely the case, carries some risk of being wrong. Still, most are so the odds favor it.

M95 is a rather odd galaxy at its core. Instead of a steadily brightening core, there's a broken ring of star formation about 10 seconds of arc from the core. The core region appears darker due to obscuring by a heavy dust layer. I tried to process the core to bring out this ring. Two dark bands funnel dust and gas into this core region fueling the massive star formation going on there. The eastern dust lane breaks into two equal parts feeding each end of the largest star-forming arc. The single lane coming in from the other side seems to fuel the smaller arc. The supernova, however, is far removed from all this activity.

Not much of interest in the annotated image. Just two quasars and one appears to be more a galaxy than a quasar. My image shows some size to it so I'm seeing a galaxy rather than a dominant quasar at its heart. It is only 2.7 billion light-years distant. To its northeast is a true quasar at 9.7 billion light-years. Between the two and below a bright orange star and just above a white star is a tight group of 7 galaxies. This is SDSSCGB 10567 a listed galaxy group of 7 members but no redshift data is available for it unfortunately so I didn't mark it. It is quite obvious in the image, however.

For a bit more on M95 see: http://messier.seds.org/m/m095.html

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=4x10' RGB=2x10', STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for M095

M096

M 96 is a galaxy in Leo near and related to M 95. While M objects are numbered in the order that they were added to the list so can bounce all over the sky M 96 is in the same part of the sky as M 95 and fits in the field of view of a very low power telescope. Both M96 and M95 were discovered the same day by Pierre Méchain, March 20, 1781. Four days later Messier observed and recorded them. The link on M95 discusses this. For more on M96 see: http://messier.seds.org/m/m096.html

Both M 96 and M 95 are at the same distance and show evidence of tidal interaction with another galaxy. Possibly each other and maybe M 105 which is part of the same group. M 96 is also about 38 million light-years distant like the others in the group. Though red shift puts it much further away and NED's non-redshift measurements show it a bit closer at 35 million light-years it appears most sources like the 38 million light-year distance. Note the very disturbed core in M 96. Like M 95, I processed this for the core so the outer arms are rather weak. Though in this case they really are weak. As with M 95, many images of this guy overexpose the core missing all the action. But they do pick up a large edge on spiral at the upper left edge of the galaxy in my shot.

Since the above was written in 2007 I've reprocessed the image discovering I lost a lot due to not understanding system noise and severe underexposure. For reasons I can't fathom I threw out the original data so can't go back to the very beginning to get the most out of my limited data. I prepared an annotated image showing all galaxies for which NED shows redshift distance data. Notice the outer arms of M 96 are so thin a galaxy over 4 billion light-years distant can easily be seen right through them. This indicates virtually no dust and gas exists in the outer rings, just stars. Without dust and gas, no new stars are forming there. Many more galaxies are seen through the outer arms. I assume behind but without distance data, this is just highly likely rather than proven. My color data is very thin so color is highly suspect.

The majority of galaxies in the image all are 730 to 760 million light-years distant. These would seem to be members of some cluster. All NED shows for my field is MSPM 02864 at 750 million light-years. But it gives no size, galaxy count or anything else on it. Somewhat southeast of my field is MSPM 02162 at 740 million light-years. Again no other information is available. Searching one degree around my image center showed no other galaxy clusters at this distance. MSPM stands for the MultiScale Probability Mapping survey. It's an automated survey to find galaxies that may be related based on user provided input. So apparently it saw all these galaxies same as I did and lumped them into these groups but since whoever defined the size, count, distance parameters knew what they were that wasn't preserved at least in the data NED used. I didn't take time to dig further. If someone does please let me know what you find and I'll include it here.

Several asteroids were within my image frame but due to my poor technique, only two are seen even in the raw data. There's a wide gap between the luminance trails, far wider than can be explained by my taking the color data halfway through the luminance. If I kept notes they were discarded with the original data so I can only surmise that clouds stopped the imaging for a couple hours then skies cleared and I continued. This was back before I had a cloud sensor that does this automatically now. So I knew what happened back then. Not 10 years later, unfortunately.

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=7x5' RGB=3x5', STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for M096

M097

M97 is known as the Owl Nebula due to its two "eyes" looking back at you from a round "face". It is a planetary nebula, the death throes of a sun-like star. In this case, it may have been a bit smaller than ours. The nebula contains about 0.15 solar mass while then white dwarf (16th magnitude in the center between the two "holes") is about 0.7 solar mass. Some mass was likely lost that we don't see glowing. The nebula is estimated to be about 6000 years old and maybe 1500 light years away. Though SEDS says 2,600 and there are other estimates, even SEDS lists others. Notice the many faint galaxies in the background. If it looks like a dim star but is slightly fuzzy it is a galaxy of billions of stars.
You can read more at: http://messier.seds.org/m/m097.html

For a photo of both M108 and the Owl that is a good example of why you can't trust a photo to show the right color of an astronomical object see: http://messier.seds.org/more/m097-108_more.html

The film used to make that photo is virtually insensitive to the color, blue-green, of OIII light. Thus the nebula comes out red when really only the outer edge is that color. OIII is the light that gives my shot its blue-green color. Color film isn't designed for line spectra. Ektachrome I used at one time for color work in my film days didn't see the red rim, only the blue-green OIII light. Even CCD filters have problems with color shift since they record only 3 colors and something that emits light at only one frequency will appear to have the color of the center of that filter's passband not the color it really had. Realizing the problem my filter maker (Astrodon) overlaps the blue and green filters so OIII light hits both in such a way as to preserve its correct color as seen by the eye. But that means other blue and green objects may not be quite right. There is a processing step that can correct for this, however.
For more info on planetary nebula and the light they emit see:
http://messier.seds.org/planetar.html

My shot used 5, 5 minute luminosity frames (I took 6 but a really bright satellite ruined one by going right through the nebula where I couldn't remove it with any tool I have and know how to use. I recently picked up one that might do it but haven't figured it out yet. Then the usual 3 by 5 minute color frames were used.

The above was taken from my original 2006 post on this object. Today a bright satellite isn't a problem. Then I actually had the tools but lacked the knowledge how to use them so killed that frame needlessly. But my technique was very poor greatly killing star color, letting system noise pollute the image making it far noisier than it should have been and the scope was obviously out of collimation to boot.

I've prepared an annotated image for the field that I didn't know how to do 11 years ago. Though there's little of great interest in the field. I did notice a super blue star that somehow survived my heavy-handed technique that killed color in many stars and weakened it in all others. The star is by a galaxy with no known redshift to the northeast (upper left) of M97. Almost always these turn out to be blue quasars. Once in a while, they are super hot white (really should be called blue) dwarf stars whose planetary nebula has long since dissipated. But in this case, NED lists it as just a star or Ultraviolet Source with no distance data. I still have to wonder about it as I've never seen anything but quasars and very hot white dwarf stars with this intense of a blue color.

I reprocessed this one as best I could but was severely handicapped by my stupidity 16 years ago. I threw out the original data and calibration files after I processed it back then. I didn't even save the 32 bit TIFF file as back then I made only 16 bit TIFF files as that was the best by software could do. Still not saving anything but a JPG with rather strong lossy compression limited what I could do. This one, like many of that time frame (mostly M objects), is in dire need or a reshoot. Though I doubt it will happen as I still have many hundreds of objects I've never taken still on my to-do list.

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=5x5' RGB=3x5'x3, STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for M097

M098

M98 is a somewhat edge on galaxy in the Virgo Cluster. Its redshift is actually a blue shift so can't be used to determine its distance. Suffice to say it is about 50 to 60 million light-years from us as that is where much of the Virgo Cluster is. M98 was discovered on March 15, 1781 by Pierre Méchain who reported it to Charles Messier. Messier then observed and recorded it on April 13, 1781. It is a rather large galaxy, much larger than ours at about 150,000 light-years in diameter by some accounts. I measure a size of 155,000 light-years assuming a distance of 55 million light-years.

NGC 4186 at the bottom of my image was found by Wilhelm Tempel in 1877. I've prepared a partial annotated image pointing out some of the things that interested me. Note the Abell Galaxy cluster near the bottom of the image is listed as being some 28 minutes of arc across so about half of it is out of my frame. One object on the lower right is shown to be an FSRQ. That stands for Flat Spectrum Radio Quasar.

Like many of my images of Messier objects, this one was taken when I first moved to digital imaging and had little idea of what I was doing. I processed it in a way that pretty much wiped out the color of the stars. I need to reprocess it but for now, this will have to do.

For a bit more see: http://messier.seds.org/m/m098.html

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=4x10' RGB=2x10', STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for M098

M099

M 99 was taken under lousy conditions. That seems to have resulted in an odd color balance I can't seem to correct. Blue comes out more cyan. I don't know why. Though I see the Kitt Peak photo on the photo link at the URL listed below also shows the blue regions as cyan so maybe it isn't just me. In any case, this is another disturbed galaxy. The arms are quite unsymmetrical and there's lots of star formation going on as seen by the HII regions (pink) and areas of new super hot blue stars in the arms. This galaxy is another in the Virgo Cluster but is flying away from us at a very high velocity. About as high as M98 has in the opposite direction (toward us). Some think these two tangled in the distant past resulting in their high velocities relative to the cluster. Both are moving at near escape velocity for the cluster. Though determining this is difficult as measuring the amount of dark matter in the cluster is an imperfect science as yet. Most think both are still members of the cluster, just ones with high velocity that will take them on much larger orbits than most members have.

M 99 is classified as SA(s)c;LINER HII at NED. It was discovered by Pierre Méchain on March 15, 1781. After he reported it to Messier, Messier observed and recorded it on April 13, 1781.

This was one of my early images and taken when I had little knowledge of what I was doing. One of many I should reshoot. Just to get it centered if nothing else.

You can read more on this galaxy at:
http://messier.seds.org/m/m099.html

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=6x5' RGB=3x5', STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for M099

M100

M 100 is one of the brighter members of the Virgo Cluster of galaxies. Its rapid motion in the cluster makes its redshift unusable for distance. Better estimates using other methods put it about 55 to 60 million light-years distant. It was discovered by Pierre Méchain on March 15, 1781, Messier saw and recorded it April 13, 1781. Since it is in a cluster of galaxies you'd expect to see a lot of neighbors around it and you do. It appears my skies were somewhat cloudy when this was taken but still you can see lots of companions. See the annotated image for details on these.

M100 itself is a great looking face on spiral that appears to have tidally disrupted arms showing it has tangled with other cluster members in the past. You can read more about this galaxy at: http://messier.seds.org/m/m100.html.

NGC 4323 was discovered by Wilhelm Temple in 1882 the same night as he saw NGC 4322 which is just a star. He just mentions he found two very faint objects above M100. Following convention, the western one has been assigned the lower NGC number but some catalogs reverse these two.

NGC 2328 was discovered by William Herschel on March 21, 1784. It's not in either of the H400 observing programs.

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=4x10' RGB=2x10', STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for M100

M101

Arp 26, more famously known as M101 made Arp's atlas under the category of spiral galaxies with one heavy arm. Located in Ursa Major its distance is rather uncertain. An average of many comes to about 20 million light-years. Arp's comment on this entry reads "Note straight arm, bright knot on east appears almost stellar." I took this image while supernova SN 2011fe was near maximum brightness. It is marked at the bottom of my image between tick marks. M101 is classified as SAB(rs)cd HII by NED, SBc by the NGC Project and SAB(rs)cd? by Seligman. While recorded in Messier's list it was actually discovered by his close friend Pierre Méchain on March 27, 1781.

I've included an image taken on August 25, 2011 shortly after the discovery of the supernova and well before it reached maximum brightness. A second taken on September 24, 2011 shows it one day after maximum brightness as it was cloudy the night of maximum brightness.

Arp's image: http://ned.ipac.caltech.edu/level5/Arp/Figures/big_arp26.jpeg
SEDS link: http://messier.seds.org/m/m101.html

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=4x10' RGB=2x10', STL-11000XM, Paramount ME both supernova images

Related Designations for M101

M102

NGC 5866 may or may not be M102. Opinions differ on this. Some say M102 was a rediscovery of M101, others that it was NGC 5866. In any case, most amateurs attempting to observe all M objects consider NGC 5866 to be M102 just to give them one more to look for if nothing else. One of several articles on the net about this can be read at: http://messier.seds.org/m/m102.html

In any case, I'm considering me as M102 since is a good example of a lenticular galaxy. These look like spirals but have little dust and no defined arms, just a highly oval shape as if they were a barred spiral without the arms. Though most barred spirals have a dust lane down each arm and lenticular galaxies rarely do. M102 appears to be an exception. We are seeing M102 edge on as evidenced by the strong dust lane. Note that there appear to be two planes to the stars in the galaxy. This is easiest to see on the upper right where there's an orange star. Look closely and you see that star is in a dark V region with the galaxy's outer parts both above and below it (fainter below) but on the other side of the galaxy the upper part is in line with the faint lower part below the red star and the fainter lower part on the lower left is lined up with the brighter upper part on the right. The dust lane is aligned with neither nor is it aligned with the bright disk it attempts to bisect being lower on the right and higher on the left. This galaxy has had to have interacted with something to have all these different planes to it. Yet this hasn't had much study. Hubble did image the dust lane in high detail. See:
http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2006/24/image/
The orange star is out of the field at the top. If you have broadband download then view the super large view, it is well worth the time.

M102/NGC 5866 is not in the Virgo Cluster. It is in Draco and is about 45 million light-years away. It is part of the NGC 5866 group of galaxies, a much much smaller group than the Virgo Cluster.

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=8x10, RGB=2x10', STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for M102

M103

M103 is a somewhat young cluster being about 22 million years old according to WEBDA. Other sources say it to be 25 million years old. When a cluster forms it is made up of a few super hot short lived stars and far more dimmer sun type stars and even more faint red stars. The huge super hot stars die quickly. Many won't even make it to 20 million years of age. So by studying the color of the stars in a cluster, we can tell its age. It can't be any older than the maximum age of its hottest, bluest stars. Since they are very bright, even though few in number they provide nearly all the light of a young cluster. In the case of M103, located at the edge of the Milky Way in Cassiopeia the fainter members are very difficult to tell from background Milky Way stars. This cluster is at a distance of 7150 to 9200 light years, distant for an open cluster. So even in my scope, the typical star is too faint to see as a cluster member.

For this reason, early estimates of the number of stars in this cluster were so low some even denied it cluster status. Turns out Messier was right, it is a cluster. But instead of the 25 to 60 members assigned by astronomers even as late as the 70's we find it has at least 172 members we can see and likely a heck of a lot more just too faint to see at its distance. One of its blue stars has already evolved into a red giant, its the obvious orange star near the center. Since it has already evolved off the main sequence we know it was originally even more massive and brighter than the remaining stars. It has since lost mass in its red giant stage and will soon make a big boom in the sky. For a few weeks, it will again be the brightest star in the cluster as it blows itself to bits and creates either a neutron star or maybe a black hole. Come back in a million years and we should know -- probably a lot less. So being young this cluster, except for that one red giant is very blue. Typical of most open clusters. It seems tidal gravitational forces in our galaxy rip clusters like this apart. So before they are more than a few hundred million years old their stars are so scattered about no cluster is left to see. Our sun likely formed in such a long extinct cluster. Since there's no need for high resolution I've reduced this image in size by one third as my usual 1" per pixel scale didn't add anything useful.

It was discovered by Pierre Méchain in April 1781.

Displayed at 1.5" per pixel rather than my usual 1" per pixel.

You can read more about it at:
http://messier.seds.org/m/m103.html

14" LX 200R @ f/10, L=6x5' RGB= 2x5', STL-11000XM, Paramount ME Taken with a rather bright moon in the sky.

Related Designations for M103