M 106 - Galaxy in Constellation Canes Venatici

The galaxy Messier 106 (M 106) in the constellation Canes Venatici is one of our closer neighbour galaxies in roughly 23 million light years distance from the Milkyway and the Earth. The galaxy hosts an active nucleus with a black hole of approximately 40 million solar masses. The galaxy core is known as a radio source since the 1950s. Further the galaxy undergoes a period of increased star-formation (starburst galaxy).

The photo was taken with the moon nearly half full end of February 2023 and the image below is crop of the full frame. The moon had a polluting impact on the image background which led to gradients. The background is thus not perfectly even but no tidal star streams or galactic cirrus are known so far in that region unfortunately. Fortunately the described effects can be hardly noticed in the processed pictures shown below.

Exposure Data:

• Newton f=1000mm f/4

• Camera Atik 460Exm mit Baader RGB Filtern

• Exposure Times

  • 159x300s L

  • 21x300s R

  • 18x300s G

  • 16x300s B

• Total: 17h50min

• Date: 27.02.-01.03.2023

• Location: Bad Kreuznach / Germany

• Mount Skywatcher EQ8R-pro / Pegasus Astro EQMod

• Guiding and Exposure Control with INDI / PHD2 / CCDCiel unter Linux

• Image Processing PixInsight and Darktable

The full image can be seen below.

Only the luminance image:

Sources: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messier_106 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messier_106