u/buddha2490

The Virgo cluster is the closest large galaxy cluster to the Milky Way and the center of mass is on the super giant elliptical galaxy M87 (Lower left corner). M87 is the target of those first Black Hole images that came out a few years ago, it is a monster. This is a small section of the cluster call Markarian's Chain. This is a reasonably deep image from Bortle 1, if you look in the cluster you can see tidal streams of stars that are being ripped away from their hosts.

One of my favorite things about long-integration astrophotography are the background galaxies. There are thousands of galaxies in this image. The first labeled image simply labels the bright stuff, Messier, NGC, and IC designated galaxies.

The second labeled image is the PGC galaxies, and no one knows anything about them. They are everywhere over the sky, and these may be foreground, background, part of the cluster, who knows? These are entire island universes with all the exciting things one might find in a galaxy, but they are small and only a handful of the millions have ever been studied.

The last image plots all the background quasars. I pulled the metadata for all these quasars, there are 509 of them in this image, all billions of light years away. The furthest one is just above the "Eyes" and was 12 billion light years away (Magnitude 22) when the light left it.

I'll leave the link to the full-def images. Its wild to just zoom in and start exploring.

Thanks!

https://app.astrobin.com/i/iddwcc

Integration per filter:

• Lum/Clear: 7h 40m (460 × 60")
• R: 2h 38m
• G: 2h 36m 30s
• B: 2h 33m 30s

Equipment:

• Telescope: Explore Scientific ED APO 127mm f/7.5 FCD-100 CF HEX
• Camera: ZWO ASI2600MM Pro
• Mount: ZWO AM5
• Filters: ZWO Blue 36 mm, ZWO Green 36 mm, ZWO Luminance 36 mm, ZWO Red 36 mm

I've had a couple dozen scopes over the last 20 years, big ones, small ones, refractors, mirrors. I live in Atlanta, and there are only about 10 stars I can see in the backyard. Narrowband filters work, but I really liked the natural aesthetic and real colors. Between weather and work and kids, I can only drive out to a dark site a few times a year and rarely for multi-night imaging.

Starfront Observatories is a company in central Texas that will host your scope and connect it to power and high speed internet. They roll the roof off every night, and close it again if weather requires it. If I need them to connect a USB or flip a switch, that's part of the service. If I need something more extensive, they have a reasonably hourly rate.

It took a month to get it set up after I sent it to them. They told me it is usually faster then that, but naturally it has been cloudy for an entire month in Texas, so I was just waiting for a clear night for them to polar align.

Imaging in a Bortle 1 is a real treat. The images come out so clean and barely require processing. I only took 10 hours of M16 and then culled that down to the best subs.

The folks at Starfront have been a real joy, very responsible and knowledgeable. Check them out.

https://starfront.space

Total integration: 8h 22m

Integration per filter:

• Lum/Clear: 3h 2m (182 × 60")
• R: 1h 42m (204 × 30")
• G: 1h 23m (166 × 30")
• B: 2h 15m (270 × 30")

Equipment:

• Telescope: Explore Scientific ED APO 127mm f/7.5 FCD-100 CF HEX
• Camera: ZWO ASI2600MM Pro
• Mount: ZWO AM5