Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Canes Venatici (CVn)  ·  Contains:  M 94  ·  NGC 4736
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M94 Croc's Eye Galaxy, Jeff Culp
M94 Croc's Eye Galaxy
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M94 Croc's Eye Galaxy

Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
M94 Croc's Eye Galaxy, Jeff Culp
M94 Croc's Eye Galaxy
Powered byPixInsight

M94 Croc's Eye Galaxy

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Description

An exceptionally stable night for the Northwest US (Seattle area) allowed for 90 subs using my C 9.25 and the 2600MC Pro. 

M94 is also known as the Cat's Eye Galaxy and is located in Canes Venatici.  Most recent measurements put M94 at a distance of about 15 Mly - relatively close by cosmic standards. This allows us to see more intricate details with our amateur scopes.  The galaxy is striking for it's structure of an inner ring seemingly made up of younger, bright blue stars.  In this image it appears some of the brightest stars are resolved here and are blue near the nucleus. There is a fainter outer band of more defuse appearance however, it does show an irregular structure and even some definition.  A 2009 study determined the outer ring is a complex structure of spiral arms and accounts for 23% of the galaxy's stellar mass.

The surrounding area is dotted with smaller, more distant galaxies - some of which show up in PI's annotation script...many more faint galaxies appear here as well.

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M94 Croc's Eye Galaxy, Jeff Culp