Astrodvorek Kamenne Zehrovice

M74

M 74 

 

Wikipedia says that Messier 74 (also known as NGC 628 or Phantom Galaxy) is a large spiral galaxy in the equatorial constellation Pisces. It is about 32 million light-years away from Earth. The galaxy contains two clearly defined spiral arms and is therefore used as an archetypal example of a grand design spiral galaxy. The galaxy's low surface brightness makes it the most difficult Messier object (phantom !) for amateur astronomers to observe.

For me this is probably the nicest autumn galaxy.. but still I had only an old and rather poor M74 picture and it came time to make it better.  And the result is, I think,  already rather satisfactory. The picture above is  a crop in full (~100% ) resolution, with nice arc of the background galaxies on the left side.
As possible matter of interest I marked with an arrow right from M74 an adjacent quasar with redshift z=3.03 (light travel time ~11.5 billion light-years) and under it another, much closer (z=1.38, ~ 9 billion light-years) and brighter quasar.

 

Optics:       NoName Newton 192/800
                   +GPU c.c.

C
amera:    Atik One6
Filters:        LRGB Baader

Mount:      SW AZEQ-6
Guider:       Lacerta MGEN

Exposure:  12x5 min. (L)
                      
8x5 min. (R, G, B each), bin 2x2
Software:  PixInsight, Photoshop
21. and 25..9. 2023

Back to Galaxies

Wider view, where the arrow on the left shows even more distant quasar with z=3.66.

M74 and quasar