This is a wide sweep from Coma Berenices down to Virgo covering the main "realm of the galaxies" region of the Coma-Virgo supercluster of galaxies covering some 25° of sky from north (at top) to south. At this scale even the largest and brightest galaxies show up only as small smudges, but the field is filled with them! At top right is the open star cluster Mel 111, the Coma Berenices star cluster. The bright star at bottom left is Vindemiatrix, or Epsilon Virginis. The field contains the heart of the Coma-Virgo galaxy cluster, the Markarian's Chain at lower right. This is a stack of 25 x 2-minute exposures with the Canon EOS Ra at ISO 1600 and the Samyang 85mm AF lens, on the Sky-Watcher Star Adventurer 2i tracker. Out of 30 frames taken about 5 were trailed enough to warrant deleting from the stack. Taken from home on a very clear night, April 13, 2021. Stacked and aligned in Photoshop, using Median stack mode to eliminate satellite trails, which were sadly present in almost every frame. No darks or LENR applied.
The large star cluster in Coma Berenices catalogued as Mel111, at right, and two prominent galaxies at left: the Needle Galaxy, NGC 4565, at lower left, and NGC 4559 at upper left. NGC 4494 is between NGC 4565 and the star cluster at bottom. This is a stack of 19 x 4-minute exposures with the Sky-Watcher Evolux 82ED refractor and its 0.9x Corrector/Reducer for a focal length of 477mm at f/5.8. The Canon EOS Ra was at ISO 800. Images taken as part of testing this telescope in April 2022.
The large star cluster in Coma Berenices known officially as Melotte 111, at right, with two of the most prominent galaxies in Coma at left: NGC 4559 at top and the Needle Galaxy, NGC 4565, at bottom. Several other fainter galaxies are in the field, including NGC 4494 between the Needle Galaxy and the star cluster, but looking very star-like at this image scale. I shot this April 11, 2021 on a fairly clear night as a test of the new SharpStar 94mm EDPH refractor telescope and its matching field flattener/reducer. A bit of passing haze added a touch of star glows. There is a version of this same field shot a week earlier in hazy skies with much fuzzier stars. This is a stack of 20 x 6-minute exposures at ISO 800 with the Canon EOS Ra, autoguided on the Astro-Physics Mach 1 mount with the Lacerta MGEN3 stand-alone autoguided set to dither 5 pixels between each exposure. No dark frames or LENR were applied. The field of view is about 3.3° x 5°.
