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
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. I shot this April 2, 2021 on a less-then-ideal hazy night as a test of the new SharpStar 94mm EDPH refractor telescope and its matching field flattener/reducer. The high haze added the star glows and accentuated the star colours, so did make for a nice image in the end. And despite the haze, galaxies as faint as 14th magnitude are recorded, such as tiny NGC 4562 below the Needle Galaxy. This is a stack of 10 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. The field of view is about ° x 5°.
Size: 5400px × 3513px
Photo credit: © Alan Dyer / VWPics / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: 3, 111, 4494, 4559, 4562, 4564, 94mm, astrograph, autoguider, berenices, cluster, coma, comae, edph, eos, galaxy, gamma, gradient, haze, mel, melotte, mgen, needle, ngc, ra, sharpstar, spring, star, xterminator
