Canon 350D Hap Griffin Baader Mod
40x180sec at iso 1600
30 Darks/Flats/Bias
Celestron 9.25 reduced 0.63

50% Crop

Cloudy Nights Small Wonders: Quick Peeks - Cetus 12/08 (Tom Trusock)

Astronomy Magazine Picture of the Day December 8, 2008

Sky and Telescope Editor's Choice November 3, 2008

Messier 77 (NGC 1068, Arp 37), lies about 60 million light years away (approximately the same distance but another direction as the Virgo Cluster) in the constellation Cetus. It is the nearest Seyfert type II galaxy to Earth, but also the most distant Messier object according to some sources.

This galaxy has been studied extensively regarding galaxy core supermassive black holes and is thought to contain a monster black hole of 15 million solar masses.

Most images of M77 are composed of the bright central core, but as you can see here, there is more to the galaxy than the bright core. Including the less-bright periphery, the galaxy spans perhaps 170,000 light years - larger than the Milky Way - and one of the largest in the Messier Catalog - containing an estimated 1 trillion solar masses.

October 30, 2008