M106

Not too bad for only 8mins, but I still need to work on the colour balance with some of my photos. Some days I get it right, others, not so great. M106, a galaxy in Canes Venatici (the Hunting Dogs), which lies at a distance of 23.7Mly (7Mpc) from Earth. The galaxy is approximately 135000ly in diameter and is about as massive as either our own Galaxy or M31. It's also one of the brightest of nearby galaxies, being about as bright as M31. It's a Type 2 Seyfert galaxy, meaning it has an AGN (active galactic nucleus) that is bright and exhibits narrow, as well as broad, spectral lines emitted by an accretion disk surrounding a central supermassive black hole, which in this case weighs in at around 39 million solar masses. The galaxy is also home to a water megamaser (basically a microwave laser on a galactic scale) that operates at the 22Ghz frequency of ortho-water and the presence of the water vapour gives the galaxy its purplish tinge. As with most galaxies surrounded by companions, the disk of the galaxy exhibited a slight warp, which is being caused by the passage of those companions. Its Hubble classification is SAB(s)bc, meaning it's an intermediate barred spiral galaxy with no inner ring structure (s) and it has a fairly open spiral structure (bc).

Pic was taken with t68 (iTelescope, NMSO), 8x60sec subs.
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