Astro-Shed

Today’s capture is that of NGC 2903. It was somehow missed by Charles Messier when he was compiling his catalog of large bright objects. It was eventually discovered by the astronomer William Herschel in 1784. He originally cataloged it as two separate “nebulae”, NGC 2903 and NGC 2905. A century passed before the 3rd Earl of Rossi resolved the spiral arms. He concluded it was in fact a single object.

This galaxy is a barred spiral tilted at a 60 degree angle from our perspective. The bar is just visible running from the 11 to 5 o:clock position across the face of the galaxy. The spiral arms are tightly wound around the central area but then quickly trail outwards. These outer arms are strewn with clusters of young blue stars giving them the overall blue hue. An intricate structure of dust lanes run through the central area.

A dwarf companion galaxy is visible just inside the frame at the upper right. NGC 2903 and its companion live in the Leo constellation a mere 30 million light years from us. Both are part of the Virgo Supper Cluster of galaxies.

NGC 2903 is an easy visual and photographic target due to its magnitude 9 brightness and 12 arc minute diameter. Its tilt allows us to capture a lot of detail in its image. This is one of my favorite galaxies of spring. I plan on adding more imaging data in the future to bring out more details in this gem.

Capture details:

Celestron SCT 8″ with 0.63 reducer

ZWO ASI533MC Pro camera

SVBoney UV/IR filter

ZWO AM5n mount

ZWO ASI184MC guide camera.