Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Leo (Leo)  ·  Contains:  NGC 2903  ·  NGC 2905
NGC2903 - A Field Barred Spiral, Jason Guenzel
NGC2903 - A Field Barred Spiral
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NGC2903 - A Field Barred Spiral

NGC2903 - A Field Barred Spiral, Jason Guenzel
NGC2903 - A Field Barred Spiral
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NGC2903 - A Field Barred Spiral

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Description

NGC2903 is a beautiful barred spiral, seen at an oblique angle from our vantage point. The galaxy is somewhere around 25-30 million light years away (though estimates vary). That puts it just over 10 times further out than the Great Andromeda galaxy. It is classified as a field galaxy, which means it's not gravitationally bound to any immediate neighbors (such as we are to Andromeda). Though a little smaller, many sources agree that this galaxy is similar in structure to our Milky Way. It exhibits quite a bit of stellar birth activity in the central area, as evidenced by the brilliant blue of young giant stars.

This galaxy was quite obviously missed by Messier. He cataloged many others in the area of similar brightness. The discovery credit was attributed to William Herschel.

I was able to capture luminance under two evenings, one with exceptional seeing, and the other with exceptional transparency. I did my best to blend the two attributes together. The color channels were not so fortunate. I let the data do the talking here and really tried to be light on the processing for a more natural view.

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