This large spiral galaxy lies about 30 million light-years from us and is quite bright for its distance. It is designated NGC 4565 in astronomical catalogues and, at about 100,000 light-years in diameter, is the same size as our Milky Way galaxy. We see it edge-on, as a Frisbee would look if held at arms length and level so one would see the edge and the central bulge. The brownish lines are from gas, dust and stars in the spiral arms. Were we to journey to NGC 4565 and look back to our Milky Way galaxy, it would look just about the same as NGC 4565 looks in this image.

Dates Taken:
May 31 and June 2, 2008
Location:
Ft. Griffin Historic Site, Texas
(dark skies about 120 miles west of Ft. Worth)
Telescope:
Takahashi TSA-102 f/8 at Prime Focus
Mount:
Astro-Physics Mach1GTO
Camera:
SBIG ST-8XME NABG w/ CFW-9, Astrodon RGB
Exposures:
Clear (no filter) 115min, binned 1X1, 5min subs;
Red 40min; Green 35min; Blue45 min; all binned 2X2, 8min subs
Total LRGB: 3.9 hours
Processing:
CCDStack and Photoshop CS2