Messier 106 and its friends

What a night! After running into one issue after the other and having to fix those for hours, this was the result of that night! Totally worth it!

Messier 106 is a neighboring galaxy located roughly 24 Million light years away from earth, inside the local group of galaxies (to which the milkyway belongs to). This is a medium-sized galaxy (similar in size to our own) and hosts approximately 190 billion solar masses. Interesting about this galaxy is its dense structure in the center of the galaxy. The center is a lot denser than the arms compared to other galaxies of similar type.

However, this photo also shows some of the neighbors of M106. A very dominant one is in the top right corner, it’s a so-called “edge-on” galaxy. Meaning, since spiral galaxies are shaped flat like a CD, looking at it edge on makes it look like a line.

The furthest away known galaxy in this photo is NGC4226, which is located over 360 million light years away! NGC4226 can be found a bit to the right of the middle of the photo