M100 is the largest spiral galaxy in the Virgo-Coma cluster of galaxy's.  I lies approximately 40 million light years away and is nearly 110,000 light years in diameter.  The galaxy is a classic spiral with many star forming regions visible as knotts in the spiral arms.  Five other faint galaxies are easily visible in the background.  This image is an average of (10 )5min exposures taken with a Starlight Express MX7C camera attached to a Meade 8"LX200 telescope.  The image was aquired and processed with Astroart.  DDP was applied to the image in order to highlight the faint regions and galaxy core.  Final balancing was done with Photoshop.