NGC3953

NGC 3953 is a barred spiral galaxy located in Ursa Major and is a member of the M109 galaxy group. It’s about 55 million light years distant with a diameter of 100 000 light years. Observed from Earth, it has a high angular inclination, 29 degrees from edge on, with a bright active nucleus and inner dust lanes.  The spiral arms contain young bright blue stars, whilst the pinkish regions indicate the presence of ionised hydrogen and star forming regions.  Two supernova’s were also discovered in 2001 and 2006.  

The background also contains a handful of more distant background galaxies which I’ve labelled in the annotated version of the image. Interestingly, the galaxy PGC2832088 identified by Pixinsight is not visible, so I presume it must be extremely faint.

The LRGB image was taken with my Esprit 150 and represents 17 hours integration time.