Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Canes Venatici (CVn)  ·  Contains:  HD106420  ·  HD106556  ·  M 106  ·  NGC 4217  ·  NGC 4226  ·  NGC 4231  ·  NGC 4232  ·  NGC 4248  ·  NGC 4258  ·  PGC 166129  ·  PGC 166131  ·  PGC 213956  ·  PGC 213962  ·  PGC 2287849  ·  PGC 2288029  ·  PGC 2291779  ·  PGC 2292054  ·  PGC 2292458  ·  PGC 2292932  ·  PGC 2294177  ·  PGC 2295162  ·  PGC 2296601  ·  PGC 2296854  ·  PGC 2297038  ·  PGC 2298488  ·  PGC 2299019  ·  PGC 2299122  ·  PGC 2299193  ·  PGC 2299404  ·  PGC 2299877  ·  And 18 more.
Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
M106, NGC4217 and friends, Mau_Bard
Powered byPixInsight

M106, NGC4217 and friends

Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
M106, NGC4217 and friends, Mau_Bard
Powered byPixInsight

M106, NGC4217 and friends

Equipment

Loading...

Acquisition details

Loading...

Description

I recorded the data for this image during six nights across January and February 2022, in sub-optimal conditions (strong winds, bad seeing) therefore I left the material in a drawer a few months before deciding to process it, pretty much convinced that nothing good would have come out of it. Surprisingly a decent galaxy structure came out, therefore I publish it here.

A  description follows here, mostly drawn by Wikipedia.

Messier 106 (also known as NGC 4258 ) is an intermediate spiral galaxy in the constellation Canes Venatici. It was discovered by Pierre Méchain in 1781.
M106 is at a distance of about 22 to 25 million light-years away from Earth. M106 contains an active nucleus classified as a Type 2 Seyfert, and the presence of a central supermassive black hole has been demonstrated from radio-wavelength observations of the rotation of a disk of molecular gas orbiting within the inner light-year around the black hole.
M106 has also played an important role in calibrating the cosmic distance ladder. Before, Cepheid variables from other galaxies could not be used to measure distances since they cover ranges of metallicities different from the Milky Way's. M106 contains Cepheid variables similar to both the metallicities of the Milky Way and other galaxies' Cepheids. By measuring the distance of the Cepheids with metallicities similar to our galaxy, astronomers are able to recalibrate the other Cepheids with different metallicities, a key fundamental step in improving quantification of distances to other galaxies in the universe.

NGC 4217 (which lies approximately 60 million light-years away) is a possible companion galaxy of Messier 106.

According to AM Garcia, the galaxy NGC 4248, 22 Mly away, is part of a so-called M106 group, that has at least 24 members.

More distant are NGC 4226, NGC 4231 and NGC 4232, respectively at distances of 331, 337 and 331 million light-years from the Milky Way. They probably form a trio of galaxies.

Some of the background galaxies are really remote: for instance PGC2298488 (just above the bottom left corner of the picture) has a radial velocity of 66928 km/s, that corresponds to a distance of 3.1 Billion light years!

Comments