NGC5033, at a distance of about 40-60 million light years, is a spiral galaxy with beautifully “flailing” arms, roughly the same size as our Milky Way Galaxy. Imaged March 3 and March 4 2017, with a Celestron 11″ Edge at f/10 and QSI683WSG with Astrodon RGB filters. Roughly 16 exposures of R, G, and B images. Resolution …….. … Read More
NGC2403 is an intermediate spiral galaxy near M81. At about 10 million light years away and 50,000 light years across, the galaxy has a large number of star forming regions — seen by the red/pink glowing areas. Resolution …….. 0.575 arcsec/pix Rotation ………. -2.235 deg Focal …………. 1935.45 mm Pixel size …….. 5.40 um Field of view ….. … Read More
M74 is a beautiful grand-design galaxy in the constellation Pisces, but is also fairly dim and hard to see visually. Captured with QSI683 camera and 11″ Edge SCT at f/10. LRGB = 32x 10min Lum, with about 16x5min RGB binned 2×2. According to Wikipedia: Messier 74 (also known as NGC 628) is a face-on spiral galaxy in the constellation Pisces. … Read More
Markarian’s Chain (named after the astrophysicist who discovered their common motion) makes up part of the Virgo Cluster of galaxies — a grouping of thousands of galaxies. While the massive galaxy M87 (upper right) is not part of the chain, it was intentionally framed in this shot as it just fit within the field of view. When looking at the annotated … Read More
Although M96 is comparable to the Milky Way in terms of size, is a relatively small galaxy from our vantage point at about 35 million light years away (compared to Andromeda, for example, which is larger than our Milky Way and less than 3 million light years away). This image consists of 8 R, G, and B images of 10 minutes each taken … Read More
M101 is a gorgeous spiral galaxy about 21 million light years away. Roughly the same size as our own Milky Way galaxy, the gravity from all the companion galaxies distorts the symmetry of the galaxy. This is a wide-field version of M101 (The Pinwheel Galaxy), taken with a QSI683 and Tak106. 10 min exposures of LRGB, binned 1×1, about 3 hours … Read More
M81 (Messier 81, also known as Bode’s Galaxy) is a grand spiral galaxy about 12 million light years away. It’s about the same size as our Milky Way, containing roughly 200 billion stars. Because it’s somewhat close as galaxies go, it’s one of the best objects to observe and photograph; however, it’s a bit too dim to see with the … Read More
M33 gets its name from the Triangulum constellation in which it can be found. At magnitude 5.7, it can be seen with the naked eye under the right conditions and is located about 3 million light years away — slightly farther than the larger and more prominent neighbor, the Andromeda Galaxy, and quite a bit smaller, too — about 40 … Read More
The Andromeda Galaxy is one of the most impressive galaxies to observe because of its size and distance — only about 2.5 million light years. While comparative sizes have changed over the years, recent data suggests the Andromeda Galaxy is only slightly larger than the Milky Way in total mass, but contains about 1 trillion stars compared to our 200 … Read More
NGC891 is an edge-on spiral galaxy thought to be about the same size and shape as our Milky Way. Located in Andromeda, the galaxy is about 30 million light years away. While we see the galaxy edge-on, the Milky Way would be nearly impossible to view from NGC891 for the same reason we cannot see (in the visual spectrum) through … Read More
NGC6436, The Fireworks Galaxy, is about 20 million light years away in Cepheus (I’ve read conflicting information that it is as close as 10 million light years and as far away as 22 million light years). It’s roughly 1/3 the size of our Milky Way. The galaxy itself is incredibly active with star formation and frequent supernovae. This image consists … Read More
M82, the Cigar Galaxy, is a starburst galaxy 12 million light years away in Ursa Major, very close to M81 and often seen in the same shot with a wide enough field of view. It’s considered part of the M81 group, and the high activity in the galaxy is thought to be due to the interaction with galaxies in the … Read More