This object is an interacting pair of galaxies that was first discovered by French astronomer Charles Messier in 1773 and like all "M" classifications was catalogued by him. The companion galaxy is designated NGC 5195. There is a gas and dust bridge between the galaxies as their interacting gravity moves stars, gas and dust between the pair. It was the first galaxy recognised as a "Spiral," the same shape as our own Milky Way. It is located about 23 million light years away in Ursa Major and is about 75,000 light years in diameter as compared to the Milky Way's diameter of about 100,000 light years.


Date: April 21, 2009
Place: Ft. Griffin State Historic Site, TX (dark site about 150 miles west of Ft. Worth)
Telescope: Astro-Tech 6" Ritchey-Chretien at prime focus of 1370mm focal length
Mount: Takahashi EM-11; Guided by an SBIG ST-237 with an E-Finder
Camera: Canon XSi - Hap Griffin modified; controlled by ImagesPlus(IP) 3.60
Exposures: 60 images at 5 min each, Raw mode; ISO 800; totaling 300 mins (5 hours)
Processing:
Calibrated, aligned and MinMaxExcAvg combined in IP 3.50, using Automatic Image Set Processing
Final color adjustments, levels, curves and resizing in Photoshop CS2

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