M-87 Elliptical Galaxy
M-87 is an elliptical galaxy in the Virgo cluster.  Generally elliptical galaxies look like a fuzzy ball of light because there are no spiral arms visible.  M-87 is different because it has thousands of satellite Globular Clusters and a vary interesting jet of super luminal gaseous material being ejected from the central core.  Even my images taken with an 8" SCT at f4 show the jet.  I really need to go back and try an image at f10.
    Constellation:  Virgo

    Size:  7.4 x 6.0  arcmin

    Magnitude:  9.6

    Surface Brightness:  12.6

    RA:  12h 30m 49.7s

    Dec: +12d 23m 24s
Scope:   8" LX 200 SCT
MX-5C CCD, STAR 2000 & IDAS LPR
Focal Ratio: f4.6
Exposure:  35 min
Scope:   8" LX 200 SCT
MX-5C CCD, STAR 2000 & IDAS LPR
Focal Ratio: f6.6
Exposure:  22 min

I tried to capture a longer exposure, but at this focal ratio you loose sight of a suitable guide star.  The STAR 2000 was able to achieve good guiding on only two of five images I tried.

Scope:   8" LX 200 SCT
MX-5C CCD, STAR 2000 & IDAS LPR
Focal Ratio: f10
Exposure:  20 min

For this image I applied the AstroArt Gradient filter to the f10 image above.  It more clearly shows the full extent of the jet.

Scope:   8" LX 200 SCT
MX-5C CCD, STAR 2000 & IDAS LPR
Focal Ratio: f10
Exposure:  20 min 
Link to the SEDS M-87 Page
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