Galaxies

NGC3344

From our vantage point in the Milky Way Galaxy, we see NGC 3344 face-on. Nearly 40,000 light-years across, the big, beautiful spiral galaxy is located just 20 million light-years away […]

NGC4656

More commonly known as Hockey Stick Galaxy, NGC 4656 is a distorted edge-on spiral galaxy. Its distinctive shape is due to a recent gravitational interaction with the galaxy NGC 4631. […]

NGC3718

You can see multiple galaxies in this section of the constellation Ursa Major. The most striking is NGC 3718, the warped spiral galaxy near picture center. NGC 3718’s spiral arms […]

NGC4725

While most spiral galaxies, including our own Milky Way, have two or more spiral arms, NGC 4725 has only one. In this image, the solo spiral arm seems to wind […]

NGC 4395

NGC 4395 is a spiral galaxy with a very low surface brightness. Unlike most galaxies the center of the galaxy is small and faint. Nearly all galaxies are known to […]

M94

A two part galaxy! This galaxy is different as there are two parts to it. The outer part, which is really really faint as compared to the bright inner part, […]

M61

M61 is a barred spiral galaxy located in the nearby Virgo Cluster of Galaxies. Visible in M61 are a host of features common to spiral galaxies: bright spiral arms, a […]

Siamese Twins Galaxies

Spiral galaxy pair NGC 4567 and NGC 4568 (in center) share this area with lonely elliptical galaxy NGC 4564 (on left). All are members of the large Virgo Galaxy Cluster. […]

Fireworks Galaxy

From our vantage point in the Milky Way Galaxy, we see NGC 6946 face-on. The big, beautiful spiral galaxy is located 22 million light-years away, behind a veil of foreground […]

M90 – An Anemic Galaxy

Messier 90 (also known as M90 and NGC 4569) is an intermediate spiral galaxy exhibiting a weak inner ring structure about 60 million light-years away in the constellation Virgo. Messier […]

Tadpole Galaxy (ARP188)

This is spiral galaxy Arp 188, the Tadpole Galaxy. The cosmic tadpole is a 420 million light-years distant toward the northern constellation Draco. Its eye-catching tail is about 280,000 light-years […]

The Whale Galaxy

The Whale Galaxy (NGC4631) is a barred spiral galaxy in the constellation Canes Venatici. This galaxy’s slightly distorted wedge shape, gives it the appearance of a whale, hence its nickname. […]

NGC3521

Gorgeous spiral galaxy NGC 3521 is a mere 35 million light-years away, toward the constellation Leo. It is considered to be a flocculent galaxy. Flocculent galaxies are those that are […]

M109

Messier 109 is a barred spiral galaxy exhibiting a weak inner ring structure around an obviously well-structured central bar approximately 83.5 ± 24 million light-years away in the constellation Ursa […]

Markarian Chain of Galaxies

Our galaxy is part of a group of galaxies that includes Andromeda, Pinwheel and about 80 other galaxies. This group is called ‘Local Group of Galaxies’. Neighboring to our group […]

M83

Spiral galaxy M83 is located in the constellation Hydra. A “starburst” galaxy, M83 is considerably smaller than our own galaxy but is producing stars at a much faster rate. The […]

NGC 3718 with NGC 3729

NGC 3718, also called Arp 214, is a galaxy located approximately 52 million light years from Earth in the constellation Ursa Major. NGC 3718 has a warped, s-shape. This may […]

Bernard’s Galaxies – NGC 6822

Grand spiral galaxies often seem to get all the glory, flaunting their young, bright, blue star clusters in beautiful, symmetric spiral arms. But small galaxies form stars too, like nearby […]

M100 and NGC 4312

Majestic on a truly cosmic scale, M100 is appropriately known as a grand design spiral galaxy. It is a large galaxy of over 100 billion stars with well-defined spiral arms […]

M77

Messier 77 is a barred spiral galaxy located 47 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Cetus. Measuring some 170,000 light-years in diameter, it is one of the largest galaxies […]

NGC 6045 and other galaxies

This just looks bunch of stars and some fuzzy stuff. But, they are dozens of very distant galaxies. The larger ones are about 450 to 525 million light years away […]

Leo Triplet

Famous as the Leo Triplet, the three magnificent galaxies gather in one field of view. They are NGC 3628 (left-bottom), M66 (center right), and M65 (top). All three are large […]

Stephan’s Quintet

There are 5 galaxies right in the middle of this image. All the yellowish galaxies are about 300 million light years away, whereas the bluish one is about 260 million […]

NGC 2903

NGC 2903 is a field barred spiral galaxy about 20 million light-years away in the constellation Leo. Just a little smaller than our own Milky Way, NGC 2903 is about […]

M95 Galaxy in Leo

Barred spiral galaxy M95 is about 75,000 light-years across, somewhat smaller in size to our own Milky Way and one of the larger galaxies of the Leo galaxy group. In […]

Whirlpool Galaxy (M51)

Those who follow my pictures closely will notice that I have imaged this galaxy many times. It’s because I love this galaxy and try to image it every year to […]

Pinwheel Galaxy in Triangulum (M33)

Pinwheel Galaxy (M33) in Triangulum constellation is our neighbor. It is the second nearest galaxy to our Milky way (excluding our Milky Way’s satellites). It’s smaller than our galaxy – […]

Cigar Galaxy (M82)

What’s lighting up the Cigar Galaxy? M82, as this irregular galaxy is also known, was stirred up by a recent pass near large spiral galaxy M81. This doesn’t fully explain […]

Antennae Galaxies – NGC 4038

Some 60 million light-years away in the southerly constellation Corvus, two large galaxies are colliding, leaving a long tail of their erstwhile spiral arms. Spanning about 500 thousand light-years, the […]

M101 – The Pinwheel Galaxy

Probably the best example of a spiral Galaxy, M101 is known as the Pinwheel Galaxy for obvious reasons – it’s many spiral arms give a clear impression of a pinwheel. […]

Bode’s Galaxy – M81

I have revisited this galaxy in 2020 and took a image with long duration of 19 hours. (43 images of 20 minutes each for Luminance & 9 images each of […]

Silver Needle Galaxy (NGC4244)

NGC 4244, nicknamed the Silver Needle Galaxy is my next image. This galaxy spans some 65,000 light-years and lies around 13.5 million light-years away. It appears as a wafer-thin streak […]

M77 & NGC 1055

This is not a pretty image, but, you can see astrophysics in action here. This is a galaxy (named M77) about 47 million light years away. I took image of […]

Two Galaxies – NGC3184 & NGC3179

My telescope is now fully collimated (aligned), but these images were taken before collimation, so there is some amount of fuzziness. But the objects are marvelous. The large Galaxy in […]

Andromeda Galaxy (M31)

Andromeda Galaxy (M31) – Andromeda Galaxy is the nearest large Galaxy to Milky Way. It consists of 1 trillion stars. The Andromeda Galaxy is a spiral galaxy approximately 2.5 million […]

M105 Group of Galaxies

Normally, I take images of galaxies with nice spiral arms. Sometimes I shoot edge on galaxies, which look flat from our angle. Then there is another group of galaxies, which […]

Spiral Galaxy in Leo – M96

Dust lanes seem to swirl around the core of Messier 96 in this picture of the beautiful island universe M96. Of course M96 is a spiral galaxy, and counting the […]

Edge-On Galaxy M102

Although similar in mass to our Milky Way Galaxy, light takes about 60,000 years to cross M102, about 30 percent less than light takes to cross our own Galaxy. Why […]

M74 – Galaxy in Pisces

About 1/3rd smaller than our Milky Way galaxy, an island universe of about 100 billion stars, 32 million light-years away toward the constellation Pisces, M74 presents a gorgeous face-on view. […]

M65-M66 Galaxies in Leo

Nearby and bright, spiral galaxies M65 (top) and M66 stand out in this cosmic snapshot. The pair are just 35 million light-years distant and around 100,000 light-years across, about the […]

NGC 772 – A peculiar galaxy

Peculiarly shaped spiral galaxy NGC 772 is found within constellation Aries, some 130 million light-years beyond the stars and nebulae of our Milky Way galaxy. This island universe is peculiar […]

Deer Lick Galaxy Group (NGC7731)

The large galaxy in this picture is a spiral galaxy about 40 million light-years away in the constellation Pegasus. The galaxy is similar in size and structure to the galaxy […]

Milky Way

After a long time, I visited Cherry Spring State Park, a truly dark sky in north central Pennsylvania. My main purpose was to observe deep sky objects using my telescope, […]

Silver Coin Galaxy (NGC 253)

NGC 253 is an intermediate spiral galaxy in the constellation Sculptor. Also known as the Sculptor Galaxy, it is a starburst galaxy, which means that it is currently undergoing a […]

Irregular Dwarf Galaxy IC1613

Usually most galaxies pictures that I post have spiral arm structure, dust lanes, definite shape and usually 100s of billions of stars. But, this image is of a irregular dwarf […]

NGC 891 – Edge-On Galaxy

NGC 891 is an edge-on spiral galaxy about 30 million light-years away in the constellation Andromeda. NGC 891 looks as the Milky Way would look like when viewed edge-on (some […]

Sunflower Galaxy – M63

A bright spiral galaxy of the northern sky, M63 is about 25 million light-years distant in the constellation Canes Venatici. Also cataloged as NGC 5055, the majestic island universe is […]

M106 Galaxy

It is a spiral galaxy in the constellation Canes Venatici. M106 is at a distance of about 22 to 25 million light-years away from Earth. It is also a Seyfert […]

NGC5982 – Draco Trio

This trio of galaxies is sometimes called the Draco Trio, located in the northern constellation of (you guessed it) Draco. From top to bottom are edge-on spiral NGC 5981, elliptical […]