M108 is a galaxy about 45 million light years away in the constellation of Ursa Major.  It is sometimes called the surfboard galaxy because of its resemblance to a surfboard.  Note the huge number of tiny, distant galaxies in the background.  These are hundreds and in some cases up to two billion light years away from us. Technical Information I imaged M108 from my backyard observatory in Nottingham, UK on 4-5 April 2021 (two imaging sessions) when M108 was almost directly overhead.  Conditions were very cold and frosty with good seeing and transparency. I used my TEC140 refractor and Atik 460 CCD camera with Astrodon E series Gen LRGB filters (1.25″).  There is almost 9.5 hours of data in this image consisting of:Lum > 42 x 300s; Red > 24 x 300s; Green > 24x300s; Blue 24 x 300sEverything was binned 1×1.  Image data was captured using Sequence Generator Pro software…

M63 is a magnificent spiral galaxy located in the Northern constellation of Canes Venatici, about 30 million light years away.  The galaxy is a member of the M51 group.  There are lots of faint galaxies in the background. M63 – The Sunflower Galaxy Technical Data Full resolution image here (opens in new tab)M63, often called the Sunflower Galaxy because of its resemblance to that flower, is a spiral galaxy about 27 million light years away in the constellation of Canes Venatici.  It is a member of the M51 group of galaxies.I captured the data for this image of the galaxy from my back yard observatory in Nottingham, UK over the nights of 4th and 5th of May 2021 when M63 was high near the zenith.  Most of the data was captured in the middle of the night on an automated basis whilst I was asleep in bed!  I used my…