Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Pisces (Psc)  ·  Contains:  M 74  ·  NGC 628
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M74 Face On Spiral Galaxy, Joe Petrick
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M74 Face On Spiral Galaxy

Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
M74 Face On Spiral Galaxy, Joe Petrick
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M74 Face On Spiral Galaxy

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Description

. Attached is an image I took 12/19/23 of Face on Spiral Galaxy M 74. It's a total of six hours of exposure. Taken over two separate nights. M 74 has a large number of H II regions that appear as a very bright red knots in the spiral arms of this image. I enhanced those H II regions by blending in one hour of hydrogen alpha data into the red channel. There are also a lot of background galaxies in this image. M74 lies approximately 35 million ly from Earth. M 74 is a very nice example of a Face on Galaxy that does not have a barred nucleus (SA). In September 1870 Pierre Méchain discovered M 74 and he reported to his friend Charles Messier who then added it to his catalog. M 74 has a very low surface brightness so it is difficult to see it spiral arms through a telescope unless you are in extremely clear skies. It shines at magnitude 9.4 and so far there've been three supernovas discovered in M 74.

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M74 Face On Spiral Galaxy, Joe Petrick