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      M91 - Barred Spiral Galaxy in Coma Berenices
      Wallpaper author:
      Michal Wierzbinski

      04 Aug 2025

      M91 - Barred Spiral Galaxy in Coma Berenices

      Messier 91 (also known as NGC 4548 or M91) is a barred spiral galaxy that is found in the south of Coma Berenices. It is in the local supercluster and is part of the Virgo Cluster of galaxies. It is about 63 million light-years away from our galaxy. It was the last of a group of eight "nebulae" – the term 'galaxy' only coming into use for these objects once it was realized in the 20th century that they were extragalactic – discovered by Charles Messier in 1781. It is the faintest object in the Messier catalog, with an apparent magnitude of 10.2.


      As a result of a bookkeeping error by Messier, M91 was for a long time one of the few missing entries in the Messier catalog, not matching any known object in the sky. It was not until 1969 that amateur astronomer William C. Williams realized that M91 was NGC 4548, which was catalogued by William Herschel in 1784. Some sources contend the nearby spiral galaxy NGC 4571 was considered as a candidate for this object by Herschel.


      Source: wikipedia.org


      Data credit: Telescope.Live

      Dataset from which the image was processed

      M91

      2 credit

      Open
      Telescope Live
      CHI-1-CCD
      • Type of target
        ............................................................................................................................
        Galaxy
      • Camera
        ............................................................................................................................
        FLI ProLine PL9000
      • Target coordinates
        ............................................................................................................................
        RA 188.8602 Dec 14.4963
      • Hemisphere
        ............................................................................................................................
        Southern
      • Telescope location
        ............................................................................................................................
        Chile
      • Transient event
        ............................................................................................................................
        No
      • Observed on
        ............................................................................................................................
        06 May 2022 - 01 Jul 2022
      Filter
      Avg Exp (s)
      Total Exposure
      Subframes
      Luminance30045m9
      Green30045m9
      Red30045m9
      Blue30045m9

      M91 - Barred Spiral Galaxy in Coma Berenices