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Description |
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M31 - Andromeda
Galaxy |
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M31 is the famous Andromeda galaxy, our
nearest large neighbor galaxy, forming the
Local Group of
galaxies together with its companions (including
M32 and
M110, two bright dwarf
elliptical galaxies), our
Milky Way and its companions,
M33, and others.
Visible to the naked eye even under moderate conditions, this object was
known as the "little cloud" to the Persian astronomer
Abd-al-Rahman
Al-Sufi, who described
and depicted
it in 964 AD in his Book of Fixed Stars: It must have been observed
by and commonly known to Persian astronomers at Isfahan as early as 905 AD,
or earlier. R.H.
Allen (1899/1963) reports that it was also appeared on a Dutch starmap
of 1500.
Charles Messier, who
cataloged
it on August 3, 1764, was obviously unaware of this early reports, and
ascribed its discovery to
Simon Marius,
who was the first to give a telescopic description in 1612, but (according
to R.H. Allen) didn't claim its discovery. Unaware of both Al Sufi's and
Marius' discovery,
Giovanni
Batista Hodierna independently rediscovered this object before 1654.
Edmond Halley,
however, in his
1716 treat
of "Nebulae", accounts the discovery of this "nebula" to the French
astronomer
Bullialdus (Ismail Bouillaud), who observed it in 1661; but Bullialdus
mentions
that it had been seen 150 years earlier (in the early 1500s) by some
anonymous astronomer (R.H.
Allen, 1899/1963). Additional Info
Messier Index M31 |
Optics - CN8-GT @ f5
Camera - Canon 300D
Exposure - 10 Minutes X 4 Frames
ISO 400
Processing -
Photoshop 6
Conditions - Hazy
NOTE: No darks/Flats |
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M51 - Whirlpool
Galaxy |
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Spiral Galaxy M51 (NGC
5194), type Sc, in
Canes Venatici. M51 is the dominating member of a
small group of
galaxies. As it is about 37 million light years distant and so
conspicuous, it is actually a big and luminous galaxy. The value of M51's
(and the whole group's) distance is still not very well known. Our value, of
37 Mly, is based on photometric methods and e.g. given by Kenneth Glyn
Jones. Some authors give significantly lower values (less than 20 Mly), but
a recent (2001) STScI Press Release gave 31 million light years.
Additional Info Messier
Index M51
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Optics - CN8-GT @ f5
Camera - Meade DSI
Exposure - 15 Sec X 110
Processing -
Photoshop 6
Conditions - Excellent |
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M58 - Spiral
Galaxy |
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Spiral Galaxy M58 (NGC
4579), type SBc, in
Virgo.
Charles Messier discovered M58, together with the apparently nearby
elliptical galaxies M59
and M60, on the
occasion of following the comet of 1779, and
cataloged
it on April 15, 1779. M58 is one of the earliest recognized spiral
galaxies, and listed by
Lord Rosse as
one of 14 "spiral nebulae" discovered to 1850. Smaller telescopes let it
look similar to the Virgo ellipticals, showing only its bright nucleus.
Under good conditions, 4-inch or larger scopes show a halo of uneven
brightness with condensations which seem to coincide with brighter areas of
the spiral arms. A suggestion of M58's bar may be noticed with telescopes
starting from 8-inch, as an "extension of the central nucleus in an EW
direction" (Kenneth Glyn Jones). Additional Info
Messier Index M58 |
Optics - CN8-GT @ f5
Camera - Meade DSI
Exposure - 15 Sec X 130
Processing - Photoshop 6 |
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M59 -
Elliptical Galaxy |
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Elliptical Galaxy M59
(NGC 4621), type E5, in
Virgo. M59 is a
member of the Virgo
cluster of galaxies, and one of the larger elliptical galaxies there,
although it is considerably less luminous and massive than the greatest
ellipticals in this cluster,
M49,
M60 and, above all,
M87. It is quite
flattened: Various sources give values of its ellipticity as E3-E5 (the
present author estimates E5, i.e. its larger axis is about double as long as
its shorter one, but our values for its dimension are closer to E3). At an
assumed distance of 60 million light years, its longer axis of 5 arc minutes
corresponds to almost 90,000 light years linear extension. According to
W.E. Harris'
list, M59 has a system of 1900 +/- 400 globular clusters, considerably
less than the three giants listed above, but still an order of magnitude
more than our Milky Way
Galaxy.
Additional Info Messier
Index M59 |
Optics - CN8-GT @ f5
Camera - Meade DSI
Exposure - 15 Sec X 40
Processing -
Photoshop 6
Conditions - Poor - Cloudy |
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M60 - Elliptical
Galaxy |
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Elliptical Galaxy M60
(NGC 4649), type E2, in
Virgo. At its
distance of some 60 million light years, this galaxy's apparent diameter of
7x6 arc minutes corresponds to a linear diameter of 120,000 light years.
Amateur telescopes, however, do only show its bright central region of about
4x3 arc minutes diameter. Its visually 9th apparent magnitude makes it a
very bright galaxy of absolute magnitude -22.3, corresponding to an
intrinsic luminosity of 60 billion suns, substantially more than the 300
million quoted in Mallas/Kreimer's Messier album. M60 is conspicuous in
telescopes starting from 4 inch because of its faint neighbor, NGC 4647,
shown in the image. For this peculiar property, Halton Arp has included M60
as No. 116 in his
Catalogue of Peculiar Galaxies as an "Elliptical Close To and Perturbing
a Spiral". Additional Info
Messier Index M60 |
Optics - CN8-GT @ f5
Camera - Meade DSI
Exposure - 8 Sec X 120
Processing -
Photoshop 6
Conditions - Poor - Bad seeing |
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M61 - Spiral
Galaxy |
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Spiral Galaxy M61 (NGC
4303), type SABbc, in
Virgo. M61 was discovered by
Barnabus Oriani
on May 5, 1779 when following the comet of that year, 6 days before
Charles
Messier's
discovery,
who had seen it on the same day as Oriani but mistaken it for the comet.
Messier mistook it for two nights more, until he realized that it did not
move. As for a
small number of others, this object was assigned an own number, H I.139,
by William
Herschel, who normally avoided to give own numbers to Messier's objects,
when he observed and cataloged it on April 17, 1786. M61 is one of the
larger galaxies in the
Virgo cluster; its 6 arc minutes of diameter correspond to about 100,000
light years, similar to the diameter of the Milky Way galaxy. Its 10th
magnitude corresponds to an absolute magnitude of -21.2.
Additional Info Messier
Index M61 |
Optics - CN8-GT @ f5
Camera - Meade DSI
Exposure - 15 Sec X 53
Processing -
Photoshop 6
Conditions - Poor - Bad seeing |
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M63 -
Sunflower Galaxy |
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Spiral Galaxy M63 (NGC
5055), type Sb, in
Canes Venatici. The Sunflower galaxy M63 is one of the early recognized
spiral galaxies, listed by
Lord Rosse as
one of 14 "spiral nebulae" discovered to 1850. It has been classified as of
Hubble type Sb or Sc, displaying a patchy spiral pattern which can be traced
well to the periphery of its only 6 arc seconds small smooth-textured
central region.
Additional Info Messier
Index M63 |
Camera - Meade DSI
Exposure - 15 Sec X 70
Processing - Photoshop 6
Conditions - Fair |
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M64 -
Black Eye Galaxy |
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Spiral Galaxy M64 (NGC
4826), type Sb, in
Coma Berenices. M64 is the famous Black Eye galaxy,
sometimes also called the "Sleeping Beauty galaxy". The conspicuous
dark structure is a prominent dust feature obscuring the stars behind. This
feature also enables one to determine, or at least estimate, which of the
galaxy's sides is nearer and which more remote; in case of M64, it seems
that the southern side is nearer to us.
Additional Info Messier
Index M64 |
Camera - Meade DSI
Exposure - 15 Sec X 70
Processing - Photoshop 6
Conditions - Fair
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M65 - Spiral
Galaxy |
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Spiral Galaxy M65 (NGC
3623), type Sa, in
Leo. M65, together with its neighbors
M66 and
NGC 3628,
forms a most conspicuous triplet of galaxies, the
Leo Triplett or M66
group, located at a distance of about 35 million light years. Although
it is close to and thus under the gravitational influence of its neighbors,
M65 looks like a very "normal" Sa type spiral and seems to have felt little
influence. It has a prominent central lense and tightly wound spiral arms,
plus a prominent dust lane marking the facing edge. The luminous disk is
dominated by a smooth old stellar population. Near the lane, some knots are
visible, which, according to J.D. Wray, may be associated with star
forming regions. The lane may hide regions of star formation usually
associated with such features in spiral galaxies.
Additional Info Messier
Index M65 |
Camera - Meade DSI
Exposure - 8 Sec X 180
Processing -
Photoshop 6
Conditions - Fair - Bad seeing |
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M66 - In
The Leo Triplet |
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Spiral Galaxy M66 (NGC
3627), type Sb, in
Leo. M66 is considerably larger than its neighbor,
M65, and has a well
developed but not well defined central bulge, and is therefore classified Sb.
Obviously its spiral arms are deformed, probably because of the encounters
with its neighbors. They seem to be distorted and displaced above the plane
of the galaxy. Note how one of the spiral arms seems to pass over the left
side of the central bulge. Much dust is visible here, as well as a few pink
nebulae, signs of star formation, near the end of one of the arms.
Additional Info Messier
Index M66
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Camera - Meade DSI
Exposure - 15 Sec X 25
Processing -
Photoshop 6
Conditions - Excellent |
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M81 - Bode's
Galaxy |
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Spiral Galaxy M81 (NGC
3031), type Sb, in
Ursa Major. The pronounced grand-design spiral galaxy M81 forms
a most
conspicuous physical pair with its neighbor,
M82, and is
the brightest and probably dominant galaxy of a nearby group called
M81 group. A few
tens of million years ago, which is semi-recently on the cosmic time scale,
a close encounter occurred between the galaxies M81 and M82. During this
event, larger and more massive M81 has dramatically deformed M82 by
gravitational interaction. The encounter has also left traces in the spiral
pattern of the brighter and larger galaxy M81, first making it overall more
pronounced, and second in the form of the dark linear feature in the lower
left of the nuclear region. The galaxies are still close together, their
centers separated by a linear distance of only about 150,000 light years.
Additional Info Messier
Index M81
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Camera - Meade DSI
Exposure - 10 Sec X 21
(poor conditions)
Processing -
Photoshop 6 |
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M82 - Cigar
Galaxy |
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Irregular Galaxy M82
(NGC 3034), type Ir-II, in
Ursa Major. In the
infrared light, M82 is the brightest galaxy in the sky; it exhibits a
so-called infrared excess (it is much brighter at infrared wavelengths than
in the visible part of the spectrum). This behaviour can also be observed
for the companion of M51,
NGC 5195, and
the peculiar galaxy
NGC 5128 (Centaurus
A). The visual appearance is that of a silvery sliver, as John Mallas
decribed it. Recently, over 100 freshly-formed (young) globular clusters
have been discovered with the Hubble Space Telescope. Their formation is
probably another effect triggered by the encounter with M81. It was
estimated that the most recent tidal encounter occurred between about 50 and
several 100 million years ago: STScI's most recent number was 600 million
years, when the 100-million-year-long period of heavier interaction began.
As a member of the
M81 group, M82 is 12 million light years distant.
Additional Info Messier
Index M82
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Camera - Meade DSI
Exposure - 15 Sec X 120
Processing -
Photoshop 6 |
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M81 & M82 Wide Field
Full size picture |
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Wide field view of the above two galaxies |
Camera - Canon 300D
Exposure - 5 min X 6
Processing - Photoshop 7 |
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M88 - Spiral
Galaxy |
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Spiral Galaxy M88 (NGC
4501), type Sc, in
Coma Berenices. This bright member of the
Virgo Cluster of
galaxies is nicely symmetrical and of multiple-arm type. As its equatorial
plane is inclined by about 30 degrees to the line of sight, its appearance
resembles a bit that of the Andromeda galaxy
M31, and its outline
is an elongated ellipse of angular dimension between 7x4 to 8x3 arc minutes,
according to different sources, corresponding to a linear diameter of about
130,000 light years. This is one of the more rewarding galaxies in the Virgo
cluster for smaller instruments!
Additional Info Messier
Index M88
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Camera - Meade DSI
Exposure - 21.4 Sec X 120
Processing -
Photoshop 6 |
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M90 - Spiral
Galaxy |
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Spiral Galaxy M90 (NGC
4569), type Sb, in
Virgo.
M90 is one of the larger (9.5x4.5') spirals in the
Virgo Cluster of
Galaxies. It has tightly wounded, smooth bright spiral arms, which
appear to be completely "fossil", meaning that currently no star formation
appears to take place, with the only exception of the inner disk region,
near the darker dust lanes. J.D. Wray speculates that this galaxy may be on
the way to evolve into a state similar to
M64, and then into a
lenticular (S0) system.
Additional Info Messier
Index M90
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Camera - Meade DSI
Exposure - 15 Sec X 150
Processing -
Photoshop 6 |
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M91 - Barred
Spiral Galaxy |
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Spiral Galaxy M91 (NGC
4548), type SBb, in
Coma Berenices. The barred spiral galaxy M91 is an appealing member of
the Virgo Cluster
of Galaxies. It is of type SBb and its bar is very conspicuous, lying at
position angle 65/245 degrees (as measured from the North direction to the
East). As its recession velocity is only about 400 km/sec, it has a
considerable peculiar velocity toward us through the Virgo cluster, about
700 km/sec, as the cluster's recession velocity is about 1100 km/sec.
Additional Info Messier
Index M91 |
Camera - Meade DSI
Exposure - 15 Sec X 140
Processing -
Photoshop 6 |
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M94 -
Crock's Eye Galaxy |
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Spiral Galaxy M94 (NGC
4736), type Sb, in
Canes Venatici. Spiral galaxy M94 was classified Sab because of its
extremely bright inner region (overexposed in our image). This bright
circular disk is surrounded by a ring of active star-forming regions, traced
by blue young star clusters in color images, which sharply separates it from
a much less bright outer ring of an older yellowish stellar population. In
the outskirts, this region however ends again in a ring with moderate star
formation activity, so that M94 is one of the relatively rare galaxies in
which two "waves" of stellar formation can be observed. In very long
exposures, a further very faint ring, about 15 arc minutes across, becomes
visible, a suggestion of which is visible in the
DSSM image of M94, but
see also the inset in the Hubble Atlas of Galaxies. The distance of
M94 is not yet well-determined (at least to the knowledge of the present
author). Tully gives about 14 million light years, Burnham 20, Kenneth Glyn
Jones 33 million light years. Additional Info
Messier Index M94 |
Camera - Meade DSI
Exposure - 15 Sec X 30
Processing -
Photoshop 6 |
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M98 - Spiral
Galaxy |
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Spiral Galaxy M98 (NGC
4192), type Sb, in
Coma Berenices. M98 is one of the more difficultly observable Messier
galaxies in the Virgo
Cluster, although it is situated in constellation Coma. Holmberg has
speculated that M98 could be a foreground galaxy rather than a cluster
member, because it is approaching us, at 125 km/sec. However, in the opinion
of the present author, this is one of the strongest arguments that M98 is
actually a Virgo Cluster member ! In the dense massive Virgo Cluster, both
infall velocity and close encounters may have summed easily up to a motion
of slightly more than 1200 km/sec, and this is apparently pointing in the
direction toward us, by chance, resulting in the measure blue shift in the
spectrum of this galaxy.
Additional Info Messier
Index M98
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Camera - Meade DSI
Exposure - 15 Sec X 110
Processing -
Photoshop 6 |
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M101 -
Pinwheel Galaxy |
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Spiral Galaxy M101
(NGC 5457), type Sc, in
Ursa Major. Although
extended 22 arc minutes on photos and quite bright, only the central region
of this galaxy is visible in smaller telescopes, best at low powers.
Suggestions of the spiral arms can be glimpsed in telescopes starting from 4
inch as nebulous patches. Several of these patches (i.e., spiral arm
fragments) were assigned their own catalog numbers by William Herschel and
later observers; according to the NGC and Burnham, there are 9 such numbers,
3 of which go back to Herschel who has found them on April 14, 1789, while
the RNGC states that five of the others don't exist (ne); it mentions
however that deVaucouleurs has them as knots: NGC 5447 (H III.787), 5449 (ne),
5450 (ne), 5451 (ne), 5453 (ne), 5455, 5458 (ne), 5461 (H III.788), 5462 (H
III.789), and 5471. On photographs, however, the Pinwheel Galaxy M101 is
revealed as one of the most prominent Grand Design spirals in the sky. While
quite symmetric visually and in very short exposures which show only the
central region, it is of remarkable unsymmetry, its core being considerably
displaced from the center of the disk. Halton Arp has included M101 as No.
26 in his
Catalogue of Peculiar Galaxies as a "Spiral with One Heavy Arm".
Additional Info Messier
Index M101 |
Camera - Meade DSI
Exposure - 15 Sec X 180
Processing -
Photoshop 6 |
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M102 ? - Spindle Galaxy |
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Evidently, M102 is the last possibly "missing",
or doubty, Messier object. This means that, based on the observation record
of his friend,
Pierre
Méchain,
Charles
Messier included this object
in his
catalog without verifying before publication, and it happens that
Méchain's published position is erroneous. Two opinions on the identity of
this object are common:
- M102 might be a duplication of the
Spiral Galaxy
M101 (NGC 5457)
in Ursa Major, due
to a possible error of either the catalog author Messier, or its
`discoverer' Méchain, a view brought up by Méchain in a
letter of May 1783.
- Perhaps more probably (due
to historical evidence), M102 may be the
Lenticular Galaxy
NGC 5866 in
Draco, also
sometimes called the Spindle Galaxy, as Messier's catalog
description indicates, together with the position he added later by hand
in his personal copy.
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Optics - CN8-GT @ f5
Camera - Meade DSI
Exposure - 15 Sec X 50
Processing -
Photoshop 7
Conditions - Full moon |
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M104 -
Sombrero Galaxy |
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Spiral Galaxy M104
(NGC 4594), type Sa, in
Virgo. This brilliant
galaxy was named the Sombrero Galaxy because of its appearance. According to
de Vaucouleurs, we view it from just 6 degrees south of its equatorial
plane, which is outlined by a rather thick dark rim of obscuring dust. This
dust lane was probably the first discovered, by William Herschel in his
great reflector. This galaxy is of type Sa-Sb, with both a big bright core,
and as one can see in shorter exposures, also well-defined spiral arms. It
also has an unusually pronounced bulge with an extended and richly populated
globular cluster system - several hundred can be counted in long exposures
from big telescopes. Additional Info
Messier Index M104
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Camera - Meade DSI
Exposure - 15 Sec X 140
Processing -
Photoshop 6
Conditions - Fair - Intermittent
Clouds |
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M106 -
Spiral Galaxy |
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Spiral Galaxy M106
(NGC 4258), type Sbp, in
Canes Venatici. The
bright Sb spiral galaxy M106 is perhaps about 21 to 25 million light years
distant. It is receding at 537 km/sec. Sandage suspects it may be a member
of the Ursa Major cloud, a loose agglomeration of galaxies which probably
also homes M108 and
M109, while Tully
lists it in the Coma-Sculptor cloud, and Fouque
et.al (1992) in a group called Canes Venatici II (CVn II) group or
M106 group of
galaxies. While M106 is usually classified as peculiar "normal" spiral of
type Sb (or Sbp), Tully classifies it as SABbc, i.e., intermediate between
Sb and Sc, and intermediate between normal and barred spirals. Additional
Info Messier Index M106
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Camera - Meade DSI
Exposure - 15 Sec X 60
Processing -
Photoshop 6
Conditions - Poor - Cloudy |
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M108 -
Spiral Galaxy |
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Spiral Galaxy M108
(NGC 3556), type Sc, in
Ursa Major. The nearly edge-on galaxy M108 appears to have no bulge and no pronounced
core at all, it is just a detail-rich mottled disk with heavy obscuration
along the major axis, with few H II regions and young star clusters exposed
against the chaotic background -- in a word: "Very Dusty". There's little
evidence for a well-defined spiral pattern in this Sc galaxy, which is
receding at 772 km/sec. According to Brent Tully, it is about 45 million
light years distant, and a member of the Ursa Major cloud, a loose
agglomeration of galaxies. Tully classifies this galaxy as SBcd, i.e. very
late Sc, and with a bar; the present author can find no evidence for such a
notion in the images he knows.
Additional Info Messier
Index M108 |
Camera - Meade DSI
Exposure - 15 Sec X 40
Processing -
Photoshop 6 |
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NGC 891 - Edge
on Spiral Galaxy |
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Spiral Galaxy NGC 891
(= H V.19),
type Sb, in Andromeda.
NGC 891 is a fine edge-on spiral with a faint dust lane along its equator.
According to Admiral Smyth, it is another discovery of
Caroline
Herschel, who found it in August, 1783. Her brother William Herschel
cataloged
it as H V.19.
Additional Info
SEDS NGC-891 |
Camera - Meade DSI
Exposure - 21.2 Secs X 125
Frames
Processing -
Photoshop 6
Conditions - Clear |
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NGC
2403 - Spiral Galaxy |
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Spiral Galaxy NGC 2403
(= H V.44),
type Sc, in
Camelopardalis. This beautiful spiral galaxy is an outlying member of
the M81 group of
galaxies, and thus about 12 million light years distant. NGC 2403 is among
the more conspicuous Northern objects which
Charles
Messier missed when compiling his catalog. Thus its discovery was left
to William
Herschel. Additional Info
SEDS NGC-2403
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Camera - Meade DSI
Exposure - 15 Sec X 65
Processing -
Photoshop 6
Conditions - Poor Transparency
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NGC 2903
- Barred Spiral Galaxy |
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NGC2903, Galaxy (Leo) |
Camera - Meade DSI
Exposure - 15 Sec X 150
Processing -
Photoshop 6 |
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NGC 3628
- Spiral Galaxy |
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Spiral Galaxy NGC 3628
(= H V.8
= Arp 317),
type Sc, in Leo. NGC
3628 forms a conspicuous group with
M65 and
M66, the
Leo Triplet or M66
group (named after the brightest of the three). NGC 3628 is the faintest
and most difficult in the group, just faint enough to have escaped Messier's
small telescopes (although it may be that his later instruments might
have shown it, if he had ever looked at this place under very good
conditions). Thus its discovery was left to
William
Herschel. NGC 3628 is seen edge-on. A conspicuous band of dark dust
clouds form a broad equatorial band, which obscures the galaxy's bright
central region, and hides most of the bright young stars in its spiral arms.
The dust band, or belt, is obviously distorted and deformed in the outer
regions of the galaxy. The reason for this deformation is evidently the
gravitational interaction with its two bright neighbors, M65 and M66. Additional
Info SEDS NGC-3628 |
Camera - Meade DSI
Exposure - 15 Sec X 70
Processing -
Photoshop 6
Conditions - Poor Transparency
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NGC 6946
- Spiral Galaxy |
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Spiral Galaxy NGC 6946
(= H IV.76),
type Sc, in
Cepheus. 8.9-mag NGC 6946 was discovered by
William
Herschel on September 9, 1798. NGC 6946 is a rather nearby spiral
galaxy, which at one time was suspected to be an outlying member of the
Local Group (Hubble
1936). It is highly obscured by interstellar matter of the
Milky Way galaxy, as
it is quite close to the galactic plane. |
Camera - Meade DSI
Exposure - 15 Sec X 100
Processing -
Photoshop 6
Conditions - Less that good transparency
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