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Bonus weekend astrophotography

I hauled out the telescope a couple of days ago for some testing after I added a new part, and as long as it was all set up I decided to take some pictures. As usual in my backyard, I had very few choices and I eventually picked M106, a Type 2 Seyfert galaxy with a massive black hole at its core. Its claim to fame is that it contains a water vapor megamaser that enabled the first direct measurement of the distance to a galaxy.

I didn't realize this while I was creating the image, because they were too faint, but the final stacked image clearly shows two other galaxies. The one just below M106 is NGC 4248; the larger one at bottom left is NGC 4217. The final image was constructed from a stack of 300 subs of 60 seconds each, taken between 9 pm and 3 am.

In case you're interested, a lovely professional photo of M106 taken with the 4-meter telescope at Kitt Peak is below my backyard picture.

March 3, 2023 — Irvine, California
This image of the spiral galaxy Messier 106, or NGC 4258, was taken with the Nicholas U. Mayall 4-meter Telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory, a Program of NSF’s NOIRLab. This view captures the entire galaxy, detailing the glowing spiral arms, wisps of gas, and dust lanes at the center of Messier 106 as well as the leisurely twisting bands of stars at the galaxy’s outer edges. Two dwarf galaxies also appear in the image: NGC 4248 is to the lower right of Messier 106, and UGC 7358 is the left of Messier 106.

8 thoughts on “Bonus weekend astrophotography

  1. Solarpup

    Oooh, my favorite Seyfert galaxy. Not only was this the first "geometric" distance measurement to another galaxy, those distance measurements are so precise that it's now used to calibrate the "distance ladder" for other distance measurements. Way back in the day when the Hubble folks estimated the distance to M106, they were a few standard deviations off from the maser distance measurements. It took them a decade or so to admit that the maser measurements were more trustworthy, and then recalibrate their distance scales based upon the maser measurements. The black hole in the center is pretty interesting, too. After Sgr A* in the center of our own Galaxy, it's probably the next most precisely known distance and mass for a supermassive black hole.

  2. Adam Strange

    Very nice shot. I think I can see the beginnings of faint spiral arms outside the bright core.

    Regarding the Mayall picture, there is no substitute for aperture.

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  3. Traveller

    Dearest Kevin: (note that I say Dearest), These are wonderful images, truly...masterful work by you...and yet, yet...they mask I think a really serious problem.

    The images compresses distance to such a degree that they hide kind of a terrible truth that we, as people individually and collectively, are seemingly incapable of dealing with...Sigh, please see Link, I don't know what to do about this...but there the truth is.

    https://www.flickr.com/photos/9755129@N08/52709106832/in/dateposted-public/

    Best Wishes, Traveller

  4. Traveller

    I apologize for the above post and request that Kevin delete it and this post also. I think I was asking for other people to do the work that I am required to do...work that, frankly, I am not up to.

    Here however is an excellent graphic regarding the Voyagers

    https://www.flickr.com/photos/9755129@N08/52725748802/in/dateposted-public/

    A scientist responded to me elsewhere, and I repeat my response to him:

    I am trying to understand what you are saying...
    .... Are you saying that in fact the earth appears larger due to light refraction and some such than is actually the case?

    I have long been curious about the vastness of space and maybe our actual and real inability, mine and everyone else's, to grasp and comprehend this vastness. It is somewhat like Infinity that apparently is real but nobody completely understands either.

    I think that you are seriously and sincerely trying to say something to me about the blue dot photo but also about what it means, I think.

    I believe that I'm going to purchase Existential Physics as a recently published book on subject and try to gain some further knowledge. I confessed, however,, that I lack the intellectual or conceptual framework to understand my question.

    I greatly appreciate your attempting, (sp), thoughts on the matter.

    Best wishes, T

    Again, I apologize to Kevin and the very excellent commentariat here. We all make mistakes.

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  6. douglaseye

    Very cool shots. (This from a guy who as a kid dreamed of escaping to another galaxy from my parents' contentious household.). But isn't it long past time that we come up with better names for galaxies? Fred, for instance. Or Angelica. Someone else throw in here ...

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