This image shows the center of the Coma Galaxy Cluster—a rich and dense group of elliptical galaxies 100 megaparsecs (326 million light years) away, in the constellation Coma Berenices. This is the most remote galaxy cluster that I have ever imaged. Most of the objects in this image are galaxies (more than 200 galaxies can be identified). If each has an average of 100 billion stars, then the image depicts 20 trillion stars!
The Coma Galaxy Cluster
Date Taken:May 9, 2005
Location Taken: Conditions of Location:FWHM 2.05
Equipment Used:Takahashi TOA-130 5" apochromat refractor telescope, SBIG ST-10XME CCD camera, Optec TCF-S focuser, Astrodon RGB filters.
Processing Used:5x600 sec luminance, 5x90 sec RGB, guided, processed in Maxim DL and Photoshop.
Distance from Location:100 megaparsecs (325 million light years, or 2,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 miles).
Constellation:Coma Berenices ("Berenice's hair") named for Queen Berenices of Egypt who vowed to cut her hair if her husband returned safely from battle. He did return, and she cut her long, blonde hair and placed it in a temple as an offering to Aphrodite. The next day it was missing. Aphrodite having been so pleased with it that she placed it in the sky.
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