Maffei 2 - Sh2-197 (Gary Imm)

Celestial hemisphere: Northern · Constellation: Cassiopeia (Cas) · Contains: Sh2-195 · Sh2-197

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Maffei 2 - Sh2-197

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Maffei 2 - Sh2-197

This object is a rarely imaged spiral galaxy located only 10 million light years away in the constellation of Cassiopeia at a declination of +60 degrees. The galaxy spans 15 arc-minutes in our apparent view, which corresponds to a visible diameter of 45,000 light years.

The reddish glow is from the significant amount of intervening Milky Way dust that obscures the galaxy. Infrared photos clearly show this as a barred spiral galaxy, but dust is blocking over 99% of the visible light. All that is seen in my image are the brighter core and arm sections of the galaxy.

This galaxy is named after Italian astronomer Paolo Maffei, who discovered it in 1967. He also discovered Maffei 1, an image of which I posted earlier today. He was one of the pioneers of infrared astronomy research and used this technology to discover these 2 galaxies.

As with Maffei 1, Sharpless "discovered" this object as a nebula in 1953, long before it was discovered and classified as a galaxy by Maffei.

The refractors!
Cloudy Nights
Takahashi Refractors
Sharpless2 Objects
ZWO ASI183/QHY183
Unique or Unusal Deep Sky Targets

Sharpless Catalog (200/313)

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The “AstroBin Image of the Day and Top Picks”, or IOTD/TP, is a long-running system to promote beautiful, interesting, peculiar, or otherwise amazing astrophotographs, with a focus on technical excellence. Learn more.

Submitted The date and time when you submitted this image for IOTD/TP consideration.	...
Views by Submitters (available since September 19th, 2023) Every image is assigned to 50% of available Submitters. In the event that at least 80% of them don't view the image before its time in the IOTD/TP process expires, it's assigned to the other 50% of Submitters and the process begins anew.
Promotions by Submitters When 3 distinct Submitters promote the image, it moves on to the next stage of the process: evaluation for Top Pick status. This requirement, in addition to anonymization of images and distribution to only a subset of them, prevents biases and ensures that the best images are selected.
Promotions by Reviewers When 3 distinct Reviewers promote the image, it moves on to the next stage of the process: evaluation for IOTD status.
Early dismissal Staff members have a lot of images to inspect on a daily basis, and they can dismiss images if they believe they don't meet the requirements for IOTD/TP selection. If an image is dismissed 5 times, it's removed from the process. This streamlines the process and ensures that any bias present in promotions could be overruled by other staff members.

Status	Advanced success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	3042436
PixInsight job	ZCJJIAWZFRBPRNQ9B090FJM8PRTJX1NO
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	n/a

RA (center)	02h41m54s.757
RA (top/left)	02h44m46s.327
RA (top/right)	02h40m15s.528
RA (bottom/right)	02h39m03s.771
RA (bottom/left)	02h43m32s.207

Dec (center)	+59°36′08″.11
Dec (top/left)	+59°40′09″.100
Dec (top/right)	+59°54′19″.42
Dec (bottom/right)	+59°31′51″.67
Dec (bottom/left)	+59°17′52″.78

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Maffei 2 - Sh2-197

Maffei 2 - Sh2-197

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Maffei 2 - Sh2-197

Maffei 2 - Sh2-197

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