Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Leo (Leo)  ·  Contains:  M 96  ·  NGC 3368
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M96 #1, Molly Wakeling
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M96 #1

Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
M96 #1, Molly Wakeling
Powered byPixInsight

M96 #1

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Description

A galaxy, for a change -- M96!

I'm actually quite pleased with how this one came out. It's hard to be very happy with my images because of the high level of light pollution here, but I've been trying out some tricks in PixInsight.

Messier 96 is a spiral galaxy in the galaxy-rich constellation Leo, which guards the sky during the winter. It's about the same mass as our own galaxy, but much more disorderly; other galaxies in the vicinity are tugging and pulling on M96, making its arms asymmetric. You can see a prominent dust lane near the core in this image, as well as dots of hydrogen-rich star-forming regions in the arm hugging the core.

This dataset is now my second-longest total exposure time, clocking in at 26h27m -- just behind my recent Crab Nebula image, which wears the crown with a whopping 34 hours of exposure time!

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M96 #1, Molly Wakeling