It is with some emotion that I publish this latest image, taken in May with my telescope in Portugal. Immerse your eyes in this portion of the universe, and feel this indescribable call to the infinite spaces of the universe. All this confuses me and pushes me ever further to discover new horizons dotted with improbable worlds.
What a pleasure it is to photograph, as a simple inhabitant of a distant planet!
On closer inspection, this image reveals over a hundred galaxies at a distance of around 500 million light years. Some are interacting and showing distortions.
When you think that each galaxy contains tens to hundreds of billions of stars and even more planets, your mind goes into overdrive and flies off into space-time.
This cluster in the constellation of Hercules is itself part of a supercluster of galaxies called the Great Wall. This Great Wall is like a filament along which galaxies grow. It is also a close cousin of the Virgo supercluster known as Laniakea (‘immense celestial horizon’ in Hawaiian), which encompasses our Milky Way and its neighbouring galaxies.
Immerse yourself and let yourself drift along with the cosmic currents!
Technical Details
The shot was taken with a cooled black and white camera ASI2600MM equipped with filters (LRVB-SHO) and a 304mm Ritchey-Chrétien telescope and 2m focal length, on an Astrophysics AP900 mount. For the processing, I favored an LRGB mix with a rise of GHS histograms to manage high dynamic details in the arms and core.
The cumulative exposure time in total is 38 hours, including RGB 14 hours and 24 hours of Luminance.