Sitting 24 million light years from us in the northern constellation of Canes Venatici is the spiral galaxy M106. This galaxy contains an active nucleus of Seyfert type II. It is identified as the largest member of the CANES II galaxy group.

This galaxy is notable for the general purple hue it gives off. This feature is causes by a superheated water vapor megamaser which allows for observation of the accretion disk surrounding the active galactic nucleus, as well as helping to measure the distance to the galaxy.

Messier 106 was largely helpful in establishing Cepheid variables as a method of measuring cosmic distances. Before M106, the different ranges of metallicities present in extragalactic Cepheids made such measurements nearly impossible. With the addition of metallicities similar to both the Milky Way and other galaxies, M106 helped to recalibrate Cepheid distances based on metallicity and better quantify distances in the universe.

The core of this galaxy is a Seyfert of type 2, which indicates a bright core active in the infrared, with a strict set of narrow EM lines, both permitted and forbidden. Forbidden lines are a bit of a misnomer; they are electron transition lines which are ridiculously improbable, and thus not included in the standard QM selection rules.

In the upper right one may find barred irregular galaxy NGC 4248. This galaxy contains several star clusters and evolving dust regions.

The background in this image was attrocious no matter how many times I re-shot calibration frames and stacked them or the lights in different ways. Eventually, I gave up and processed what I had. This was also my first HDR composite as well as my first ever image with the Celestron CGX. I've been experimenting over and over for a while now, but haven't seemed to fully optimize it to its true potential yet. It definitely has not helped that we have been getting more clouds than stars. Oh well; I haven't lost hope yet. It humbles me in how inexperienced I still am at some of this stuff.

Cheers, everyone!

Lilith