Messier 109 is a barred spiral galaxy that looks similar as our own Milky Way would look from the outside.
It has a central bar with An older star population. As blue stars do not live as long, the bar is yellowish.
M109 lies at aproximately 80 million lightyears away. So when this light left M109, the dinosaurs where still alive
In the spiral arms new stars are still being born, including large blue stars. So the spirals are more blue.
The bright star Phad (gamma Ursa Major) in the image is the 3rd brightest star in the big dipper.
Telescope: Skywatcher 150/750pds
Mount: HEQ5
Camera: QHY 294M
Filters:
BaaderPlanetarium LRGB filters
Captured on 11-4-2021 and 29-1-2022
Total exposure time was 6 hours
R,G,B: 25x90 seconds, gain 1600
L: 80 x 180 seconds, gain 1600
Processed in PixInsight with LRGB combination. The bright star Phad was replaced from the RGB image, as that one was not as much saturated.
increased the color saturation with CurvesTransformation, after applying a mask to the fainter parts of the image. That same mask was used (inverted) to reduce noise and color saturation in the background.
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