u/25toten

Homie randomly appeared north of Annesburg in the woods. Somehow he wandered all the way there from St Dennis.

Captured using a Seestar S50 4/26/26 83°W, 42°N - 1hr exposure time.

The M106 is a whopping 25 million light years away, meaning this light was sent to us around the time early apes just started appearing on Earth. We are looking through a time machine at the long distant past. It's considered an active galaxy, as it's anomalous arms are being shocked/heated by its central black hole.

As an added bonus, also got the bright star "Chara" in this frame (bottom right). Got lucky with clear weather capturing all 4 of these in a single frame!

By comparison, the star in corner "Chara" is only 27 light years away. That homie is very close in properties to our own sun and explains why its very bright to us compared to the other stars in that region.

We're seeing multiple layers of the universes depth in one frame. By far my favorite picture yet! I will definitely revisit this galaxy as it has a ton of neighbors in proximity that are not in this shot.