Observations of M61
These are the observations available for M61. If you have any of your own that you'd like to submit we'd love to put them on the website.
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Messier 61 (NGC 4303) in Virgo
Astronomical darkness is now at an end for another season, but I have had a busy springtime imaging a number of galaxies. I've been using an ASI 294MC Pro camera and have overcome initial difficulties with achieving an acceptable colour balance and continue to be impressed with what this camera can achieve in relatively small exposure times. I've now reduced the camera gain setting to 50 to maximise the available well depth. This has reduced sensitivity but the end results still look good to me.
The Italian astronomer Barnabas Oriani discovered M61 on 5th May 1779 when he was following the comet C/1779 A1 Bode - it seems to me that several of the early discoveries of the galaxies of the Virgo Cluster are due to observers following this comet. He described M61 as
very pale looking and exactly like the comet
. Charles Messier found M61 the same night but mistook it for the comet and it was not until six days later that he realised his mistake, so M61 became another entry in his notes listing nebulae that could be mistaken for comets. Messier described M61 asvery faint and difficult to perceive
. It took Lord Rose and his 72" telescope to see some of the spiral structures of this galaxy.
This image of Messier 61 (NGC 4303) in Virgo was provided by David Davies and taken from Cambridge in the UK. To see more of David's work please visit his Flickr Photostream. You can click here for a larger version of this image. I have found M61 to be quite a challenging target for my 8-inch telescope. With an integrated magnitude of 9.7 and 6' x 6' in size, the bright core contrasts with the quite faint spiral arms which hold lots of intriguing detail.
Image Details
50 x 2-minutes exposures (gain 50, offset 13)
- Telescope: 8-inch Ritchey-Chretien.
- Camera: ZWO ASI 294MC Pro camera.
- Mount: Skywatcher EQ8.
- Software: NINA, Pixinsight, Photoshop.
David Davies - (10 May 2022).
