M96

Object: M96
Constellation: Leo
Distance: 41 Million Light-Years
Magnitude:
Comments: M96 is a spiral galaxy with very faint arms, and has a bright core surrounded by a ring of heavy star formation, with dust lanes extending all the way to the nucleus. A faint edge-on spiral galaxy can be seen shining weakly through the outer arm postion. M96 is the brightest member of the Leo I galaxy group. The bright inner portion stretches about 66,000 light-years across, and the dim outer arms extend out to about a 100,000 light-years. A bright supernova was discovered in M96 in 1998.

Date: 1995
Place: Asheville, NC
Exposure Details: LRGB:200:40:40:40 at -30c, Lumincance unbinned; RGB binned 2
Processing: Processed using Registar, Maxlm, and Photoshop CS

Optics: 12.5" RCOS Truss RC
Focal Length: 2908mm @ f9
Mount: Paramount ME
Camera: ST-10XME, guided by the AO-7
Focuser: RCOS
Guiding: On-chip
Filters: CS filters