M99

M99, in Coma Berenices, is one of the spiral galaxies in the Virgo Cluster, lying about 60 million light years from Earth. Because of its distance, it shines at only 10th magnitude and is one of the fainter members of the Messier catalog but is still a nice sight in a larger instrument due to its orientation of being almost face-on from our viewpoint. This galaxy is unusually asymmetric, having a nucleus shifted toward the top in my photo below. It is also moving away from us at the highest recession velocity of any Messier object, about 1500 miles per second, and thus M99 is also moving through the Virgo Cluster at an unusually high velocity. There is some speculation that this may have resulted from an encounter with another member of the cluster in the recent past. If so, it could also explain the offcenter location of the galaxies' nucleus. Two type II supernovae have been seen in M99, one in 1967 and one in 1972, and one type I supernova was recorded in 1986.

Image taken Feb. 24, 2012, with the C-14 operating at F:3.5 and the ST-8 camera binned 2 X 2. Exposure is 7 1/2 minutes.