Little Pin­wheel Galaxy (NGC 3184) in Ursa Major

NGC 3184 is a strik­ing, nearly face-on galaxy tick­ling the left hind toes of the Great Bear. In shape and size, NGC 3184 is very sim­il­ar to M101, in the same con­stall­a­tion. Both galax­ies meas­ure about 60’000 light-years in true phys­ic­al extent. The dis­tance to NGC 3184 is about 36 mil­lion light-years, which in roughly twice the dis­tance of M101.

The bright star above NGC 3184 is shin­ing at 6.55 mag, while the galaxy to the right is NGC 3179 with 13.1 mag. The light scat­ter­ing vis­ible across the imges comes from Mu UMA, a star with 3.0 mag at an angu­lar dis­tance of 45 arc minutes.

[descrip­tion from O’Meara]

Details

Tele­scope:
RCOS 14.5″ f/​8
Mount:
ASA DDM85
Cam­era:
SBIG STL-11000M
Fil­ters:
Astro­don Gen2
Expos­ure:
LRGB 540:160:160:160 min.
Loc­a­tion:
ROSA Remote Obser­vat­or­ies South­ern Alps
Author:
© Mar­tin Ruster­holz, Astrophotographer

Find­er Chart Little Pin­wheel Galaxy (NGC 3184)

NGC 3184 Galaxy Sky Chart Astrophotography Martin Rusterholz

Image cre­ated by Skychart

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About Me

Hello, my name is Martin Rusterholz. I’m a Swiss amateur astrophotographer living near Zurich, the biggest town in Switzerland. My interest in astronomy started when I was 16. At that time, I built my first Newtonian telescope and mount. I studied physics at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) which was the only study including at least some aspects of astronomy and astrophysics. “Looking at the nights sky is an experience touching everybody deeply inside, something common to all human beings independent to the language spoken by the individuals”. Deep-sky astrophotography is my passion.

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