M106 - Spiral Galaxy in Canes Venatici
Mag 8.4 RA 12:19 Dec +47 18
19 x 8 arcminutes

Also in this picture are the galaxies:
NGC4346 lower left
NGC4217 amidst the bright stars lower right
NGC4248 very noticeable at 2 o'clock to M106
NGC4232 just to the right of that (very tiny spiral with a cool hook at the top)
NGC4220 near top of the frame right of centre
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From SEDS.ORG:
Discovered by Pierre Méchain in 1781. The bright Sb spiral galaxy M106 is perhaps about 21 to 25 million light years distant. It is receding at 537 km/sec.

Its equatorial plane is inclined to the line of sight so many features resemble what we know from the Andromeda galaxy M31. This orientation explains partly why the dust lanes are so prominent in this galaxy. They form a spiral pattern which can be traced well into its bright central region to the core. The spiral arms end in bright blue knots. These knots are most probably young star clusters which are dominated by their very hot, brightest and most massive stars; the occurence of these hot stars indicates that these clusters cannot be very old, as such massive stars have only a short lifetime of a few million years. So the blue knots show us the regions of very recent star formation!

M106 is one of Pierre Méchain's findings, which were later appended as additional objects to Charles Messier's catalog. In case of M106, it was Helen Sawyer Hogg who added it together with M105 and M107 in 1947, but it appears reasonable to assume that already Méchain had intended to add it to a future edition. William Herschel had numbered it H V.43 when cataloging it on March 9, 1788.
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Camera: Apogee U16M w Astrodon Gen II LRGB
Scope: Astro-Physics AP155 w 4" FF
Mount: Paramount ME

Image is cropped to 8x12 from the square original shape.

The moon was politely absent.

Click on the image to see a larger version.

Flesherton, Ontario
April 2 2011