While this is a reprocess of earlier data, I feel that I got enough additional resolution and dynamic range out of this to offer this as a closeup framing of the two principle galaxies in the area, M 106 and NGC 4217.  If this violates any AstroBin rules within my unlimited uploads, then I will be happy to delete my old post of the wider field that included these objects.  However, for those who like the widefield, you can see it with the mouseover.  Well its a reverse mouseover, since typically people offer the blown up image as the mouseover.  But I wanted to allow the viewer the chance to see this framing and also some detail in the structure of the Seyfert galaxy, M 106.  It is some of the faint detail that I brought out in this version that I think warrants a new post, since it is related to the fact that M 106 is a Seyfert galaxy.  Seyfert galaxies such as M 106 contain an active galactic nucleus.  Basically a light engine, driven by a supermassive black hole(BH) with a massive accretion disk surrounding the BH.  Type II Seyferts also have a torus of material outside of the accretion disk.  The light, heat, magnetic energy and mass outflows of these structures are thought to be similar, though smaller in scale, to what drives the energetic Quasi Stellar Objects (Quasars).  It is not uncommon for Seyfert galaxies to be much brighter in non-visible electromagnetic radiation. More than we can see through the eyepiece or with our cameras.  And they can emit very broadly in IR, microwave and other radio frequencies.  M 106 contains a microwave emitter called a Megamaser.  Basically a microwave laser of great brightness and probably eminating from the central engine.  Because of its proximity to us, M 106 is clearly an object of intense study, both past and present.  Clearly M 106 is a galaxy that has been disturbed in some way.  It is not clear if the small galaxy nearby is the culprit, but the effect seems to have been profound.  The nucleus seems to be deeply buried.  I can imagine that such disturbance may have released a good deal of material to fall inward toward the super massive BH.

During processing, I naturally tried to preserve the delicate colors that one typically gets with OSC data.  This without destroying the natural colors or excessive color saturation.  So the blues and reds are more subtle than in the first presentation.  There is no Ha overlay in this image.  In this case, I was pleased to see the reds typical of HII star-forming regions that typically show up in images of the denser dust lanes, which are star-forming regions of M 106.  But this time, I also saw faintly, but clearly, what looked like a long faint red or pink arc structure that seemed unusual because it crossed the normal path of the dust lanes.  As my eye interpreted this, I actually see this as a feature that points outward away from the plane of the galaxy.  I found this structure on images from much better telescopes.  I present these in a revision that includes an image insert from a 4M telescope at New Mexico SU and an image of overlayed Radio image and Visible (DSS2).  The 4M telescope shows the towering red cloud well.  The Radio image shows that this structure is actually much more extensive.  The Radio signature shows a spiral-like structure that extends above and below the disk of M 106.  In fact I suggest looking up the M 106 image from Hubble, since I think it also shows both extensions.  The concept that these are extensions above and below the disk are my speculation.  With any 2D image, it is impossible to discern the absolute geometry of these features.  But above and below does seem to make sense.  I further speculate that if we were to be able to view M 106 as an edge on galaxy, it would look very much like M 82, the Cigar Galaxy, still another very active galaxy.  M 82 appears to be classified as an active galaxy because of extreme starburst activity and spectrally appears not to be a Seyfert.  But the mechanisms are not exclusive, so it may be that they share some qualities.  The question I have is why are they ejected materials red?  My guess is this is HII signal.  But what is exciting the gas in these towers of gas and dust?  Compared to star-forming HII regions, they seem to rely on the close proximity of hot, UV-emitting stars.  It is not clear to me that there are any of these stars regularly distributed along these towers to cause such emission.  Also, these towers seem to emit in a much broader range of EM radiation than star-forming emission regions.  Cloud towers reaching up from the disk of spiral galaxies are not rare.  They can also be found in the Milky Way.  But their presence to us astrophotographers occurs mostly because they are very faintly illuminated by the galactic stars below, or more rarely, from a nearby star as a reflection nebula or a small cluster of stars forming from within.  For M 106, I wonder if the illumination comes from intense radiation from the Seyfert engine far below.  If that is the case, it is telling to how intense the EM is from the center of this galaxy.

Other than the stars of the field, the larger galaxies, I find the image to be interesting in the high density of very distant, very red galaxies.  No doubt red shifted by extreme distance. The 4 hr and 18 minutes of integration time is actually quite generous for a RASA.  Especially for the brighter objects.  But at zero gain and full well depth on the camera, I am very pleased with how deeply I can see in this image for a single night's effort.  And it seems to hold up well when pixel peeping.  The biggest issue I had was this was one of the images that was plagued with spider webs within my optical tube.  So the random spikes on the brighter stars, and even a bit on some of the smaller stars is there.