Majestic on a truly cosmic scale, M100 is appropriately known as a grand design spiral galaxy. It is a large galaxy of over 100 billion stars with well-defined spiral arms that is similar to our own Milky Way Galaxy. One of the brightest members of the Virgo Cluster of galaxies, M100 (alias NGC 4321) is 56 million light-years distant toward the constellation of Berenice’s Hair (Coma Berenices). Studies of variable stars in M100 have played an important role in determining the size and age of the Universe. Many pink starforming regions dot its blueish spiral arms.

On top-right is NGC 4312, which is a smaller galaxy, just a little closer to us at 55 million light years. In addition, there are 4 other galaxies, two of them just below M100. There are also 2 other galaxies on the top-left section. One of them is a yellowish oval, but, there is a fuzzy irregular area, just right of the brighter yellow star in top-left section.

I took this image in April & May 2019, but, never got to process these. The image was taken over 11 hours. I took 21 Luminance of 20 minutes each and 8 images each of 10 minutes of each color.