Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Ursa Major (UMa)  ·  Contains:  NGC 3953
Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
NGC 3953, Doug Summers
NGC 3953
Powered byPixInsight

NGC 3953

Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
NGC 3953, Doug Summers
NGC 3953
Powered byPixInsight

NGC 3953

Equipment

Loading...

Acquisition details

Loading...

Description

NGC 3953 doesn't get as much attention as near-by Messier 109, but it probably does deserve a bit more.   The galaxy has a nice grand design spiral structure, but with an inner ring surrounding a prominent bar.   It also has a nice mix of dust lanes, large blue stellar associations, and even a prominent ionized hydrogen region at the end of one of the arms.   It is 54 million light years distant in Ursa Major.  The galaxy's angular extent is on the order of 5x3 arc minutes, so the true size is approximately 75K-80K light years (major axis), making it a bit on the smaller size as compared to our own Milky Way galaxy.    The immediate field has a couple of nice smaller distant spirals that show structure, as well as some other faint fuzzies.

This is a pretty good crop to get a better look at some of those inner details.

Comments

Revisions

    NGC 3953, Doug Summers
    Original
  • Final
    NGC 3953, Doug Summers
    E

E

Description: Slight color and background adjustment, with tighter crop

Uploaded: ...

Sky plot

Sky plot

Histogram

NGC 3953, Doug Summers

In these collections

Galaxies