This Messier object, also known as NGC 4736, is a magnitude 8.2 Seyfert spiral ring galaxy located 14 million light years away in the constellation of Canes Venatici at a declination of +41 degrees.   This galaxy is the 16th brightest galaxy in the sky.

The bright blue starburst ring is the main feature of this beautiful object, with pink HII regions, blue star clouds, and classic brown dust lanes winding into the core.  I have a collection of these star-forming rings here.

 Looking closely you will see that, like many DSO "rings", this feature is not a true ring.  The ring consists of 2 halves, split at the 2 and 8 o'clock positions.  The split ring traces the traditional beginning arm structure of a barred spiral galaxy, although in this case no bar is seen extending across the ring from 2 to 8 o'clock. 

Beyond the starburst ring, a diffuse disk extends out to about 30,000 light years and contains a few isolated HII regions.  Note that the main axis of this diffuse disk is not quite aligned with the axis of the starburst ring.

The dust lanes fascinate me.  If you try to visually ignore the bright starburst ring, you will see that the dust lanes spiral continuously from core to outer diffuse disk edge.  It surprises me that the dust lanes seem unaffected by the starburst ring.  The dust lanes are much more visible at upper left, perhaps because that is the near side of the galaxy to us.  The lower right side (far side?) may be obscured from our view by the faint galactic halo which likely exists above the galaxy disk.

A dark void ring extends around the inner disk, and then a faint outer ring extends out to about 60,000 light years  in diameter.  This ring is thinnest at the 4 and 10 o'clock positions.

It is interesting the the axes of 4 distinct regions of this galaxy - inner core, blue star-forming ring, inner disk, and outer disk - are all aligned differently.

Faint distant background galaxies, located between 1 and 2 billion light years away, are seen through the diffuse disk of M94.