Galaxies I've Captured Over the Past Two Years
My wide-field telescope is well suited to large nebulae, but most distant galaxies appear small in the frame. Even so, long exposures and careful stacking have revealed distinct structure in a surprising range of galaxies. Every image in this collection was captured from my backyard under suburban skies with the same compact setup.
Galaxies come in many forms and sizes. This collection includes spiral galaxies with winding arms, an elliptical galaxy dominated by older stars, the actively star-forming Cigar Galaxy, interacting pairs, and entire groups and clusters. The sections below combine notes from each image with a closer look at the objects themselves.
Messier 51 - The Whirlpool Galaxy
The Whirlpool Galaxy (Messier 51) is a face-on spiral galaxy famous for its well-defined arms. It lies about 23 to 31 million light-years away in the constellation Canes Venatici. M51 is a grand-design spiral interacting with the smaller companion galaxy NGC 5195. With an apparent magnitude of about 8.4, its fuzzy glow is visible through smaller telescopes, making it 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. At roughly 11 to 12 million light-years from Earth, it is one of the nearest large galaxies beyond our Local Group. M81 spans about 96,000 light-years and has a bright nucleus containing a supermassive black hole. Its size, proximity, and magnitude of about 6.9 make it a popular target for both professional study and amateur imaging.
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 in Ursa Major, about 12 million light-years away and close to M81. Unlike its grand spiral neighbor, M82 appears as a distorted, edge-on glow. A past encounter with M81 compressed its gas and triggered intense star formation. Despite being much smaller than the Milky Way, M82 is several times more luminous and drives powerful winds from its core. Hydrogen-alpha images often reveal reddish plumes produced by that activity.
In my photograph, M82 appears as a slender, elongated smudge. Its small apparent size makes detail difficult to resolve with a wide-field telescope, but the 40 hours of exposure shared with M81 revealed a warm core, patchy structure, a central dust lane, and a faint reddish outflow. Its high surface brightness helps it stand out against the background sky.
Messier 104 - The Sombrero Galaxy
Although it appears very small through my telescope, the Sombrero Galaxy (M104) is one of my favorite targets and a strong candidate to revisit at a longer focal length. Its bright central bulge and prominent dark dust lane create the broad-brimmed profile behind its nickname. M104 lies roughly 30 million light-years away and is bright enough to appear as an elongated smudge in a small telescope. Its structure combines a large elliptical-like bulge with the thin disk and dust lane of a spiral or lenticular galaxy.
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 line of galaxies in the Virgo Cluster. The chain lies about 50 to 60 million light-years away and stretches across more than one degree of sky, twice the apparent width of the full Moon. It was named after astrophysicist Benjamin Markarian, who discovered in the 1960s that several of its galaxies share a common motion through space. The bright members include the giant elliptical galaxies M84 and M86, both discovered by Charles Messier in 1781. Farther along are NGC 4435 and NGC 4438, an interacting pair nicknamed "The Eyes." One galaxy's distorted shape reveals the gravitational pull of the other. Lenticular galaxies such as NGC 4477 and NGC 4473 and smaller elliptical galaxies such as NGC 4458 complete the curve. At least seven members move as a coherent group within the Virgo Cluster, while a few others may simply align with the chain from our point of view.
At first, the Markarian's Chain frames did not look like much. As I processed the stack, however, an astonishing number of galaxies emerged. Nearly every faint blur or irregular patch of light in the full-resolution image is another distant galaxy.
The Leo Cluster
Finally, the Leo Cluster may look understated at first, but its distance makes the image remarkable. The cluster lies roughly 280 to 330 million light-years away, so even its larger galaxies appear as tiny smudges. Located in the constellation Leo, it contains a mix of spiral and elliptical galaxies and forms part of the broader Coma Supercluster structure.
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. This image contains about five hours of exposure time collected over two nights. The cluster remains low on the horizon from my location, so nearby trees limit the time available to photograph it. Even with that short window, many galaxies are clearly visible. The annotated version identifies the cataloged galaxies throughout the field.
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Galaxies are among my favorite astrophotography subjects. It is humbling to realize that each faint smudge may contain hundreds of billions of stars in a system as large as, or larger than, the Milky Way. There are many more targets still to capture and share.