Elliptical Galaxy M87

The elliptical galaxy M87 is the home of several trillion stars and a supermassive black hole. For comparison, our Milky Way galaxy contains only a few hundred billion stars. Messier 87 is the dominant member of the neighboring Virgo cluster of galaxies. (NASA Science)

Illustrated in the image above is a jet, blue in color, emanating from the center of the galaxy.

The jet released from the galactic center is a black-hole-powered stream of material that is being ejected from M87’s core. As gaseous material from the center of the galaxy accretes onto the black hole, the energy released produces a stream of subatomic particles that are accelerated to velocities near the speed of light. (NASA Science)

Image processed by Andrew Macica, original data from Telescope Live.

Imaging Details:

Observatory: Rio Hurtado Valley, Chile

Telescope: Planewave CDK24

Aperture: 610 mm (24 inches), f/6.5

Focal Length: 3962 mm

Camera: FLI PL 9000 CCD

Filters: LRGB

Total Exposure: 5 hours 30 min.

Image Processing: PixInsight 1.8.9-3 Ripley (x64);

BlurXTerminator, NoiseXTerminator (RC Astro);

Adobe Photoshop 12.5.1;

Adobe Lightroom Classic 14.1.1

Instruction on PixInsight from Adam Block Studios.

It is a pleasure using the data from Telescope Live.

I imaged M87 back on March 10, 2011, remotely using an RCOS 24 inch F/8 telescope from Rodeo, New Mexico (LightBuckets). It was state of the art at the time and I also imaged the jet in M87. It was excellent for the day.

On the other hand, over 14 years, observatories, image processing software and techniques have advanced considerably and the quality of results that I am getting today is a substantial step forward. It continues to be a growing experience.

My March 10, 2011 image of M87 is in my Flickr "Astrophotography" album.