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Messier 109 is a Barred Spiral Galaxy that can be spotted next to Phecda, the sixth brightest star in Ursa Major. It’s most notable feature is the long bar going through it’s core that resembles Darth Vader’s Tie Advance star fighter from Star Wars. Nearby in this image are many other more distant galaxies and a few that are satellite galaxies in the M109 Group.

Phecda (outside of frame) is glowing quite brightly from the upper left corner but there can be seen diffraction spikes that just happened to be lined up in such a way that make this image also resemble the Bat Signal or some form of galactic spotlight. :)

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Ursa Major is full of exciting galaxies to see. This image contains a galaxy called NGC3718 (lower center of image) that was likely warped by the smaller barred spiral galaxy NGC3729 (top center of the image). Just to the left of NGC3718 is a chain of 5 distant galaxies commonly known as the Hickson Compact Group 56. Throughout the field are a great many smaller galaxies.

I find myself in awe as I look through the data as the camera brings it in from the telescope in the backyard, and am completely blown away by all the details that can be seen in these galaxies though their light shines from so far away and so long ago.

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Holmberg 124 is a set of four interacting galaxies that can be found in Ursa Major. Centered in this image is NGC2805. The longest edge-on galaxy is NGC2820 and two smaller nearby galaxies are NGC2814 and IC2458.

NGC2805 is very active with lots of star-forming regions that can be seen particularly throughout the left arm. This activity seems to be recently encouraged by the interactions with the other galaxies in this group.

Faint “whisps” of gases and dust are also visible in the image. This “flux nebula” sits outside of our own Milky Way galaxy but close enough that they are illuminated by the light coming from our galaxy. Sprinkled across this view are also many smaller and more distant galaxy groups.

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The Hyades Star Cluster has never really fascinated me much until I got into the hobby of deep sky imaging. As a bright set of stars in the night sky it’s commonly known as The Bull from ancient mythology. I didn’t know just how much star forming activity was going on in this region of space until my attention was directed to the Large Dark Molecular complex in taurus, and even then I hadn’t a clue how far it extended across the sky. This picture depicts some of the further reaching arms of that dark series of nebula. Inside it most prominently is Aldebaran, the giant red-class star, brightest in all of Taurus. To the upper left is NGC1647 a far younger open cluster. On the upper edge in the middle is Hind’s Variable Nebula(NGC1555) and Struve’s Lost Nebula (NGC1554.) Probably my most favorite region of this image is the Sh2-239 reflection nebula sitting in extremely dense molecular cloud LDN1551.
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After over a year attempting to shoot this region I’ve finally completed a revision of the dark molecular clouds that cover the taurus region near the Pleiades. This is but one panel of a larger 8-panel mosaic that I’ve planned and hope to complete before summer gets here. But this region in particular is one that I am a huge fan of. it is home to the very popular and bright star cluster M45 the Pleiades that sits behind the molecular cloud, but it’s radience shines through the dust. Through the dust structures one can find LBN777, a “ghost like” molecular cloud that to my eyes looks like it’s about to eat that bright yellow nearby star is more commonly known as the Vulture Nebula or Baby Eagle Nebula.