Galaxies I’ve Captured Over the Past Two Years
I don’t have the ideal telescope focal length for imaging tiny galaxies. My current setup is a wide-field telescope, which is great for big nebulae but makes most distant galaxies appear small. In the future I plan on adding a longer focal length scope to get closer, more detailed views. For now, I’m excited to share the smaller galaxies I’ve imaged over the past two years with my modest astrophotography rig. All these photos were taken with the same equipment – see my section on equipment for more detail – and in my backyard under suburban skies. Despite the challenges, each galaxy revealed some of its unique details after careful long exposures and stacking.
Galaxies come in a variety of types and sizes, and this collection covers a broad sample. You’ll see spiral galaxies (like M51 and M81) which are rotating disks of stars with winding arms, an elliptical galaxy (M84 in Markarian’s Chain) which is a more rounded system of older stars with little new star formation, and even a starburst galaxy (M82) undergoing intense stellar production. There are also interacting galaxies tugging on each other gravitationally, and entire galaxy groups and clusters (Markarian’s Chain in the Virgo Cluster, and the distant Leo Cluster). The sections below breakdown a variety of different galaxies I captured along with some interesting facts and notes on the imaging process. Enjoy!
Messier 51 – The Whirlpool Galaxy
The Whirlpool Galaxy (Messier 51), is a face-on spiral galaxy famous for its well-defined spiral arms. It lies about 23–31 million light-years away in the constellation Canes Venatici. M51 is a grand-design spiral galaxy – one with prominent and well-defined spiral arms- with a smaller companion galaxy, NGC 5195, tugging at one of its arms. With an apparent magnitude of about 8.4, M51 is bright enough that amateur astronomers can spot its fuzzy glow even in smaller telescopes, so it’s a favorite target for observers and astrophotographers.
M51’s spiral arms owe much of their prominence to the gravitational dance with NGC 5195, which is triggering star formation as the two galaxies interact. My wide-field image of M51 doesn’t show individual stars, but the classic two-arm “whirlpool” shape is clearly visible after stacking long exposures. This galaxy’s relatively high surface brightness makes it one of the more forgiving small-galaxy targets to photograph with modest equipment. Still, I look forward to revisiting the Whirlpool Galaxy with a higher magnification setup to reveal finer details in its spiral arms.
Messier 81 – Bode’s Galaxy
Bode’s Galaxy (Messier 81), is a grand-design spiral galaxy in Ursa Major (aka The Big Dipper). At roughly 11–12 million light-years from Earth, it’s one of the nearest big galaxies beyond our Local Group. M81 spans about 96,000 light years in diameter, similar in size to the Milky Way. This galaxy has a bright nucleus that harbors a supermassive black hole. Thanks to its large size, relative proximity, and overall brightness (around magnitude 6.9), M81 has been studied extensively by professional astronomers and is another popular target.
Through my equipment, M81 sits in the same field of view as its companion galaxy M82 (the Cigar Galaxy) mentioned below, and the two have interacted gravitationally in the past. I captured M81 in the spring season when Ursa Major was high in the sky, giving me the best chance at sharp images. I took over 500 five-minute exposures or 40 hours of exposure time over nine nights to stack and produce the image above. It was still a challenge to edit the image. After failing in 2023 and 2024 to produce an image I was happy with, I tried again in 2025 with more exposure time and better editing experience. I was finally able to draw out some of the faint outer spiral arms and show the galaxy’s yellowish core and bluish arms.
Messier 82 – The Cigar Galaxy
The Cigar Galaxy (Messier 82), is a starburst galaxy also located in Ursa Major, only about 12 million light-years away – essentially next-door to M81. Unlike the grand spiral form of its neighbor, M82 appears as a distorted, edge-on cigar-shaped glow. It is undergoing a frenzy of star formation. Astronomers believe this burst of star formation was triggered by a past close encounter with M81. The gravitational interaction compressed gas in M82, igniting rapid stellar birth. As a result, M82 is about 5 times more luminous than our entire Milky Way despite being much smaller. It’s the prototypical starburst galaxy, with winds of gas blowing out from its core – images in hydrogen-alpha often show reddish plumes from supernova-driven winds. Notably, M82 hosted a bright supernova (SN 2014J) discovered in 2014, and even more recently, in 2020-2023, it’s been the source of unusual flashes like an ultra luminous pulsar and a magnetar flare, highlighting the extreme conditions in this galaxy.
In my photograph, M82 appears as a slender, elongated smudge. Pulling out detail in M82 is challenging with a wide-field scope because it’s quite small (about 11′ by 4′ arcminutes in size – Ill do a post on this later!). However, with enough exposure I could enhance the contrast to reveal an orange-reddish hue in the core (indicating the starburst regions rich in hydrogen). This photo of M82 was taken at the same time and within the same frame as M81 above – a total of 40 hours of exposure time. The galaxy’s patchy structure and the dark dust lane bisecting its center became visible. Barely visible is the faint reddish outflow coming from the core (the supernova-driven wind). M82’s high surface brightness helped; at about magnitude 8.4 it stands out well against the background sky. This galaxy, though small in my frame, is one of the most active and interesting objects I’ve imaged, due to its intense star-forming activity and gravitational interaction with M81 nearby.
Messier 104 – The Sombrero Galaxy
Though very small with my scope, the Sombrero Galaxy (M104), is one of my favorite objects Ive imaged so far and will be one of the first targets I repeat with a larger focal length telescope in the future. True to its name, M104 looks like a broad-brimmed Mexican hat in images – it has a bright, glowing central bulge and a prominent dark dust lane along its edge, resembling a sombrero. This galaxy is roughly 30 million light-years away. With an apparent magnitude around 8.0, the Sombrero is bright enough to spot in small telescopes as an elongated smudge. M104 is either an unusual spiral or a lenticular galaxy; it has a large bulge like an elliptical galaxy, with a thin disk and dust lane of a spiral. It’s slightly bigger in diameter than the Milky Way (about 95,000–100,000 light years across). One remarkable feature of the Sombrero is its central supermassive black hole, which is about 1 billion times the mass of the Sun – one of the most massive black holes found in any nearby galaxy. M104 also possesses an enormous swarm of globular clusters in its halo – observational studies estimate 1,200–2,000 globular clusters orbiting the Sombrero, far more than our Milky Way has.
For my wide-field setup, M104 is a tiny target – only about 9 by 4 arcminutes in apparent size. In my images, it appears as a small but distinct oval with a bright center. The signature dark dust lane slicing across the galaxy’s middle is just barely visible in my stacked image, appearing as a thin line cutting the bright halo. Because M104 is low on the horizon from my latitude (it never rises very high in the sky), I only had a short window to capture it each night. Turbulence near the horizon made the data a bit soft, but stacking many frames helped improve the signal. Despite the challenges, the final image clearly suggests the “sombrero” shape – a bright bulbous core with a flat disk. I look forward to revisiting this target in the future with a more powerful rig!
NGC 4631 – The Whale Galaxy
NGC 4631, known as the Whale Galaxy, is a lovely edge-on spiral galaxy in the constellation Canes Venatici. From our perspective, we see this galaxy’s disk almost sideways, which along with its slightly warped shape gives it a visual resemblance to a whale floating in space. NGC 4631 lies roughly 25–30 million light-years away and shines at about magnitude 9.8. It’s classified as a barred spiral, and it’s interacting with a small companion dwarf galaxy, NGC 4627. The little companion (sometimes nicknamed “the Pup”) is a dwarf elliptical that appears just next to the Whale’s “head” in images. The Whale Galaxy is also the dominant member of a small galaxy group (the NGC 4631 Group) that is part of our Virgo Supercluster. One interesting feature of NGC 4631 is its central starburst region – the core is actively forming stars and driving a galactic superwind. X-ray and radio observations have revealed a halo of hot gas and magnetic fields blowing out perpendicular to the galaxy’s disk, likely fueled by multiple supernova explosions in the nucleus. From our vantage point, we can see the uneven, “rugged” profile of the Whale Galaxy’s disk, which is why earlier observers thought it looked like a whale (some even call it the Herring Galaxy).
In my image, the Whale Galaxy stretches across the frame as a thin, hazy streak with a brighter central bulge. Even with a small scope, the elongated shape is easy to see after stacking, though capturing fine details (like the dark bands in the disk or the tiny companion galaxy) required long total exposure time. I ended up using over 3 hours of integration on this target. The companion NGC 4627 (the “Pup”) is faint, but I managed to record it as a little fuzzy spot just above the Whale’s disk. I also captured the nearby Hockey Stick Galaxy (NGC 4656/4657) in the bottom left of the field – another distorted galaxy in this group.
Markarian’s Chain (Virgo Cluster Galaxies)
Moving from individual galaxies to groups, one of the most impressive sights I captured is Markarian’s Chain – a graceful chain of galaxies that forms part of the Virgo Cluster of galaxies. When you look at my Markarian’s Chain photo, you’ll see a curving line of galaxies of various shapes. This chain is located about 50–60 million light-years away (the distance to the Virgo Cluster) and stretches across more than 1 degree of sky – an area two times the width of the full Moon! The chain was named after astrophysicist Benjamin Markarian, who discovered that these galaxies share a common motion through space in the 1960s. The bright members of Markarian’s Chain include two giant elliptical galaxies, M84 and M86, which anchor one end of the chain. These were actually discovered by Charles Messier in 1781. Along the chain are several other galaxies such as NGC 4435 and NGC 4438 – a pair of interacting galaxies nicknamed “The Eyes” because in a telescope they look like a pair of glowing eyes close together. They are interacting, with one galaxy’s tidal forces disturbing the other – you can see the bottom galaxies distorted shape from the gravitational pull of the other. Other members include lenticular galaxies like NGC 4477 and NGC 4473, and smaller ellipticals like NGC 4458, all chaining together in a smooth curve. At least seven of these galaxies are actually moving as a coherent group within the Virgo Cluster, while a few others in the line of sight may just be coincidentally aligned.
At first glance the first images of Markarian’s change didnt look like much but as I started to process the image, the sheer number of galaxies that emerge is mind boggling. Open the image up and look around. If you see a faint blurry spot or an irregular shape of light, its a distant galaxy!
The Leo Cluster
Finally, we venture to what initially looks like the least impressive images: the Leo Cluster of galaxies. The Leo Cluster is an extremely distant galaxy cluster – on the order of 280–330 million light-years away from Earth! This colossal distance means that even the larger galaxies in the cluster appear as tiny faint smudges in my images. The Leo Cluster resides in the constellation Leo (specifically in the direction of Leo’s northeastern fringe) and, together with the neighboring Coma Cluster, forms part of the massive Coma Supercluster structure. The Leo Cluster contains at least 70 major galaxies (and countless dwarfs), including a mix of spirals and ellipticals. The brightest member is an elliptical galaxy called NGC 3842 (about magnitude 11-12) which, along with another big elliptical NGC 3837, dominates the cluster center.
Imaging the Leo Cluster pushed my equipment and processing to the limit. In the final picture, nearly every tiny smudge or speck is a galaxy – it’s a very cluttered field when you look closely. This is only about 5 hours of exposure time over two nights. It appears low in the horizon so my window to capture it each night is limited by trees around my property. But even with the short exposure time, you can see many of the galaxies clearly. To help, I have an annotated version which shows all the cataloged galaxies in this image!
Conclusion
Galaxies are one of my favorite astrophotography subjects. Its humbling to realize that each faint smudge in an image could represent hundreds of billions of star4s- entire systems, some larger than our own Milky Way Galaxy. The scale, the energy and the sheer number of galaxies out there are impossible to fully comprehend. I have plenty more targets too shoot and share in the future!
