The Needle Galaxy is nearly 50 million light-years away. I used 11 hours of exposure time to capture it from my backyard.

Image from preview.redd.it and submitted by chucksastro
image showing The Needle Galaxy is nearly 50 million light-years away. I used 11 hours of exposure time to capture it from my backyard.

chucksastro on April 16th, 2020 at 04:45 UTC »

Image Details

NGC 4565 is an edge-on spiral galaxy about 30 to 50 million light-years away in the constellation Coma Berenices. It lies close to the North Galactic Pole and has a visual magnitude of approximately 10. It is known as the Needle Galaxy for its narrow profile.

If you look closely, many more galaxies can be seen in this picture, one of which is interacting with the Needle Galaxy.

I used 11 hours of exposure time to capture it from my backyard.

Follow me on Instagram @chucksastrophotography if you would like to see what's possible to be captured from our own backyard and to see what telescopes I use.

Hardware

Imaging Telescope: Explore Scientific 127mm ED Refractor (952 focal length)

Imaging Camera: ZWO ASI1600MM Cool

Mount: Celestron CGX

Note: A lot of people ask this, but how does my telescope stay on target if the Earth rotates. My camera and telescope sit on a motorized mount and with the help of computer software, it stays on target. I run exposures across multiple nights.

This is a video of how I captured it.

shootwhatsmyname on April 16th, 2020 at 04:56 UTC »

Dude woah I mean I took a photo of the moon once

jmim2 on April 16th, 2020 at 06:03 UTC »

Could contain advanced life beyond our comprehension and we would never know