Galaxy group: Canes Venatici II
📍 Main galaxy: M106 (NGC 4258)
📏 Distance: ~23.5 million light-years
✨ Constellation: Canes Venatici
⚫ Central black hole: supermassive, ~40 million solar masses
🌌 Type: Spiral galaxy with active nucleus (Seyfert II)
📍 Other notable galaxies: NGC 4217, NGC 4248, NGC 4220, and more
📏 Distances of other galaxies: from ~24 million to over 60 million light-years
At the center of this group lies M106, hosting a supermassive black hole about ten times more massive than the one in the Milky Way. Its gravity devours surrounding gas at incredible speeds, heating the material and producing powerful jets, making the nucleus extremely bright and active. Material in the inner disk rotates at over 1,000 km/s.
Looking at this image is like traveling through time and space. M106 and its close companion NGC 4248 appear as they were ~24 million years ago, while more distant galaxies, like NGC 4217 in the lower right, appear smaller and fainter because they lie over 60 million light-years away.
Shot on: Seeatar S30
300×30s exposures in EQ mode
Stacked in Siril and edited in Affinity
by artemis_2020