On the Road is a weekday feature spotlighting reader photo submissions.
From the exotic to the familiar, whether you’re traveling or in your own backyard, we would love to see the world through your eyes.
After the Winter Milky Way season when Orion slips into the haze on the horizon and before the Milky Way core rises at a reasonable hour we have Galaxy Season. There just isn’t much to photograph in the night sky, but other galaxies. I’m not talking about the Andromeda and Triangulum galaxies that are prime targets during core season and the Winter Milky Way, but galaxies much further away. Due to their distance, these galaxies can be difficult to capture requiring long exposure over many nights, especially with a bare bones setup that I have, but I did manage to capture a few that I’ll share with you below.
Leo Triplet
The Leo Triplet is composed of three galaxies about 35 million light years away. M65 is at the upper right of this photo with M66 at the lower right. The Hamburger Galaxy(NGC3628)is at the left and is characterized by its prominent dust lane giving it its common name. There is clear evidence even from my shot that M66 is being distorted by its interaction with M65.
The Whirlpool Galaxy
The Whirlpool galaxy(M51) is a grand design spiral galaxy that is interacting with its small elliptical galaxy neighbor(NGC 5195). These two galaxies are about 31 million light years distant. The Whirlpool is often a good first galaxy target for astrophotographers.
Bode’s Galaxy and the Cigar.
Closer to home at 12 million light years distant are Bode’s Galaxy(M81) and the Cigar Galaxy(M82), since it is shaped like a cigar and has an eruption of H-alpha emission at its center. The H-alpha emission is due to M82’s interaction with M81.
The Virgo Cluster and Markarian’s Chain
The Virgo Cluster of galaxies lie about 55 million light years away and contain between 1300 to 2000 galaxies. This shot focuses only on a small portion of this cluster of galaxies showing Markarian’s chain with “the eyes”(NGC 4435 and NGC 4438) a pair of interacting galaxies.
The Northern Pinwheel Galaxy
The Pinwheel Galaxy(M101) is about 21 million light years distant. It is almost 3 times the size of our own Milky Way Galaxy.
Baud
Space is mind bogglingly vast. Never get tired of contemplating it, or looking at your photos.
JWR
Ditto to what @Baud wrote, (space and astronomy always boggles my mind), and I hope you’re doing well.
p.a
Excellent!
Saw something online from the new digital scope in Chile. Wowsers.
Princess Leia
What amazing photos!
Quantum man
@JWR: Amazing photos!
BenInNM
Beautiful photos! Thank you for sharing
CaseyL
The spiral galaxies are festive pinwheels; there’s something sweet and whimsical about them.
I remember how mind-blowing it was to look through a telescope and see Saturn, “live and in person,” for the first time.
What does it feel like to see these galaxies?
Old School
Wonderful!
Did everyone see the Rubin Observatory’s picture of Virgo?
Steve in the ATL
@JWR:
double ditto to the first clause and single ditto to the second
Torrey
Amazing photos. When you say that the Whirlpool Galaxy is “interacting with” the smaller elliptical galaxy, what exactly does that mean? Colliding? (I’m told the better term is “merging.”)
frosty
Those are amazing images, Billin. Kudos for your setup, patience, and skill!
cope
What an accomplishment getting these shots, thank you. Seeing these galaxies that I could never see with my own naked eye is quite inspiring. Imagine the possibilities.
NutmegAgain
Wow. Stunning. Just wow.
J.
Wow. Love these! Crazy that you can see stuff millions of light years away. Thank you for sharing. (I’ve also been enjoying the images from the Vera Rubin Observatory.)
🐾BillinGlendaleCA
I apologize for being late today, I was out at Red Rock shooting.
@Baud: A guy I follow on YouTube and who wrote some of the software I used to process these images, has captured quasars in some of his shots that are 13 billion light years away.
@JWR: I’m doing well, I’ve seen what appears to be dim out of focus stars in some of my shots, they’re galaxies that are a quarter of a billion light years distant.
@p.a: Thanks, I saw a bit from PBS about the Rubin, amazing sensor on that scope.
pat
What is the West Glendale Observatory?
Snarlymon
Wonderful photos. I’m curious as to what kind of telescope you use? I’m guessing it’s a fairly high quality one to get this quality of photos and of course you obviously know how to use it. Always look forward to your posts.
🐾BillinGlendaleCA
@Princess Leia: Thanks much.
@Quantum man: I was shooting another galaxy this morning, thought one closer to us.
@BenInNM: Thanks, I’m working to make them better. I think next year’s shots will be much better than these.
🐾BillinGlendaleCA
@CaseyL: I do like the spiral galaxies as well, but I actually don’t “see” them, just as they’re shot on my computer screen. One of these sets I’ll include an annotated shot of my rig.
@Old School: Rubin’s Lagoon and Trifid are today’s APOD.
@Steve in the ATL: There’s a reason folk call me a space case.
🐾BillinGlendaleCA
@Torrey: Interacting would be the gravitation from each galaxy is causing distortions in their shape, that will eventually merge.
@frosty: The setup is bare bones, I guess that in turn requires patience and maybe some degree of skill.
🐾BillinGlendaleCA
@cope: Thanks, other than our satellite galaxies(the LMC and SMC) there are only two that you can see with the naked eye, Andromeda and Triangulum.
@NutmegAgain: Thanks much.
@J.: As I mentioned in my reply to Baud, some folk with non-professional(though better than mine) have see light that left its source 13 billion years ago. I think the furthest light that I’ve recorded is from galaxies 250 million light years away.
Paul in KY
@Old School: Thank you for that link.
🐾BillinGlendaleCA
@pat: It’s what I call my rig that I set up in my front yard, but it is in West Glendale. I stole the idea from a YouTuber that calls his scope and dome the Byron Bay Observatory.
pat
@🐾BillinGlendaleCA:
I was beginning to realize that these amazing photos are from your rig. Looking forward to seeing it. Must be awesome.
Temp Decloaked Lurker
Like those whirlpool & pinwheel galaxies.
WTFGhost
@Baud: Just avoid the Total Perspective Vortex and you’ll be fine.
@CaseyL: Even cooler: the pinwheels spin too fast, and that’s how we learned about dark matter and dark energy. Some stars far from the galactic center are orbiting too fast for gravity from visible mass and energy to be the cause.
John Sterling
@🐾BillinGlendaleCA: Glendale, California? Doesn’t the light pollution kill you?
🐾BillinGlendaleCA
@pat: They are all from my humble yet portable rig. It doesn’t look like much and has a limited payload, but works.
@Temp Decloaked Lurker: I do as well, the pinwheel was a bit of a problem here, I did get much better results under dark skies.
@WTFGhost: We are talking about Baud here, he can’t avoid the vortex.
@John Sterling: Yes! That Glendale. While there is no substitute for dark skies, filters can help a lot. I used UHC and dual narrowband filters that help get rid of a lot of wavelengths of light.