Messier 106 - A Galaxy in Canes Venatici
Date: May 26, 2020
Cosgrove’s Cosmos Catalog ➤#0027
Messier 106 (click to enlarge)
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About the Target
M106, also known as NGC 7353, is a galaxy in the constellation Canes Venatici (The Hunting Dogs), which is located between 22 and 25 million light-years away. M106 is a massive galaxy with a very active core region that is home to a supermassive black hole. The core is extremely bright relative to the galaxy and in my image, the core is a little over-saturated because of this.
Wikipedia tells us the following about M106:
M106 has a water vapor megamaser (the equivalent of a laser operating in microwave instead of visible light and on a galactic scale) that is seen by the 22-GHz line of ortho-H2O that evidences dense and warm molecular gas. Water masers are useful for observing nuclear accretion disks in active galaxies. The water masers in M106 enabled the first case of a direct measurement of the distance to a galaxy, thereby providing an independent anchor for the cosmic distance ladder. M106 has a slightly warped, thin, almost edge-on Keplerian disc which is on a subparsec scale. It surrounds a central area with mass 4 × 107M⊙.
It is one of the largest and brightest nearby galaxies, similar in size and luminosity to the Andromeda Galaxy. The supermassive black hole at the core has a mass of (3.9±0.1)×107 M☉.
M106 has also played an important role in calibrating the cosmic distance ladder. Before, Cepheid variables from other galaxies could not be used to measure distances since they cover ranges of metallicities different from the Milky Way's. M106 contains Cepheid variables similar to both the metallicities of the Milky Way and other galaxies' Cepheids. By measuring the distance of the Cepheids with metallicities similar to our galaxy, astronomers are able to recalibrate the other Cepheids with different metallicities, a key fundamental step in improving quantification of distances to other galaxies in the universe.
Also seen in this image is the edge-on galaxy NGC 4248 located adjacent to M106, which is located 25 Million Light years away. Towards the top, you can also see a very small pair of galaxies NGC 4231 and 4232.
About the Project
This was the result of 71 exposures of 120 sec each. Shot with a William Optics 132mm FLT APO refractor on an IOptron CEM60 mount. The camera was a ZWO ASI294MC-Pro. 25 Dark, 50 flat, and 60 bias calibration exposures. Processed via DeepSky Stacker, Pixinsight, and Photoshop
The Annotated Image
An annotated image of M106 created by using Pixinsight’s ImageSolver and AnnotateImage Scripts.
The Location in the Sky
IAU/Sky & Telescope Constellation Man of Canes Venatici - with M106 marked by the yellow arrow.
Details
Light frames
71 x 120 seconds, bin 1x1 @ -15C, unity gain
Total of 1.3 hours
Cal Frames
25 Dark
50 flat
60 bias
Capture Hardware
Scope: Astrophysics 130mm Starfire F/8.35 APO Scope: William Optics 132mm f/7.0 FLT APO
Guide Scope: Sharpstar 61EDPHII
Camera: ZWO ASI1600mm-pro with ZWO Filter wheel with ZWO LRGB filter set,
and Astronomiks 6nm Narrowband filter set
Guide Camera: ZWO ASI290Mini
Focus Motor: Pegasus Astro Focus Cube 2
Camera Rotator: Pegasus Astro Falcon
Mount: Ioptron CEM60
Polar Alignment: Polemaster camera
Software
Capture Software: PHD2 Guider, Sequence Generator Pro controller
Image Processing: Deepsky Stacker, Pixinsight, Photoshop - assisted by Coffee, extensive processing indecision and second-guessing, editor regret and much swearing….
During August and September I was out shooting every clear night. I had learned a lot of things but I was also noticing several issues that were causing me problems as I did more imaging. I decided to do something to address those issues….