Messier 94 (M94, NGC 4736) is a nice spiral galaxy situated in constellation Canes Venatici, and one of the nearer beyond our Local Group of Galaxies.
Spiral galaxy M94 was classified Sab because of its extremely bright inner region. This bright circular disk is surrounded by a ring of active star-forming regions, traced by blue young star clusters in color images, which sharply separates it from a much less bright outer ring of an older yellowish stellar population. In the outskirts, this region however ends again in a ring with moderate star formation activity, so that M94 is one of the relatively rare galaxies in which two "waves" of stellar formation can be observed. In very long exposures, a further very faint ring, about 15 arc minutes across, becomes visible.
The distance of M94 is estimated to be about 16 million lightyears.
(from seds.org)
Date: 03/25/2010
Size:
Image Data
Telescope: RCOS 14.5" f/8
Mount: ASA DDM85
Detector: STL-11000M
Filters: Astrodon Gen 2
Exposures: LRGB 280:120:140:120 min
Observatory: ROSA, France
