M106 (Tim Hutchison)

Celestial hemisphere: Northern · Constellation: Canes Venatici (CVn) · Contains: M 106 · NGC 4217 · NGC 4226 · NGC 4231 · NGC 4232 · NGC 4248 · NGC 4258

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M106

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M106

When I first began imaging deep space objects, M106 was one of the first where I exclaimed "...I have to shoot that one!" For some reason it always appealed to me. But I had no idea how important this galaxy is to astronomers.

M106 has a water vapor megamaser (a naturally occurring source of stimulated spectral line emission) which enabled the first case of a direct measurement of the distance to a galaxy, providing an independent reference point for the cosmic distance ladder.

Another unusual feature of M106 is its extra pair of arms. Most spiral galaxies have only one pair of arms. M106 has an additional set of arms made up of hot gas rather than stars. Astronomers attribute the formation of these arms to the supermassive black hole at the galaxies core. I really wanted to bring out the additional arms about the core. I shot almost 27 hours of Ha alone. After subtracting out the continuum signal the lower arm became visible. The upper arm is there, but it's just a whisper.

M106 is located 24mly from Earth in the constellation of Canes Venatici and has a magnitude of 9.1.

Original
B
C
Final
D

B

Description: This is the Ha signal before continuum subtraction.

Uploaded: ...

C

Description: Fixed an artifact and fixed background gradient...

Uploaded: ...

D

Title: Reprocessed with Generalized Hyperbolic Stretch script

Description: Reprocessed using Generalized Hyperbolic Stretch script.

Uploaded: ...

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Status	Advanced success
Started	...
PixInsight job	ZN9W0H5DVJ74H4LA3NBCV8XQD72I506N
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	TASK_LOG

RA (center)	12h17m32s.593
RA (top/left)	12h20m22s.383
RA (top/right)	12h14m51s.430
RA (bottom/right)	12h14m44s.782
RA (bottom/left)	12h20m11s.750

Dec (center)	+47°17′12″.13
Dec (top/left)	+47°38′24″.26
Dec (top/right)	+47°40′11″.77
Dec (bottom/right)	+46°55′42″.62
Dec (bottom/left)	+46°53′58″.76

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