Galaxy Cluster in Virgo

The brightest galaxy in this view, the elliptical M-86, is about 60 million light years from Earth and contains over 50 billion stars.  The other galaxies in this view are farther away but equally populated.  Just think, when the photons that struck my camera to form this image originally left M-86, dinosaurs still roamed.  Amazing and humbling.

Date: April 30 - May 2, 2006
Location: Cupertino, CA
Scope: Takahashi FS102 @ 600mm
Guiding: Vixen 60mm refractor with SBIG ST-4
Mount: Losmandy G-11
Camera: SBIG ST2000XM
Filters: Custom Scientific in FLI CFW
Exposure details:
  Red filter 4x40 minutes
  Green filter 4x20 minutes
  Blue filter 4x20 minutes
Processing: MaximDL for calibration, alignment and combining.  
PSCS and Noise Ninja for final processing