This beautiful face-on pinwheel galaxy is number 101 in Messier's list, but was discovered in 1781 by Pierre Mechain. Also known as a "grand design spiral", it spans about 184,000 light years across (twice as large as our own Milky Way!) and the light captured in this photo is over 22 million years old. Astronomers estimate the number of stars in this behemoth at over 1 trillion! Some of the brighter spots along the spiral arms are active star forming regions, while three supernovae (think stellar death) have been observed in this massive galaxy.
Photo Details
June 8, 2024
Orion 8" Astrograph on Celestron AVX Mount
SBIG STF-8300C Camera
Skyglow filter
21 subframes at 3 minutes/frame
Total Exposure Time = 1 hour 3 minutes
Image Acquisition in CCDOps
Image Stacking in Deep Sky Tracker
Image Processing in PhotoShop
Image Acquisition in CCDOps
Image Stacking in Deep Sky Tracker
Image Processing in PhotoShop
