This is a relatively nearby example of a considerably active and vigorously developing spiral galaxy. Although it is one of the brightest galaxies in the northern sky that is not listed in Charles Messier's famous catalogue of comet-like objects, it is rather difficult to capture the full extent of the faint outer parts of the spiral arms. Almost 5 hours of exposure reveal an idea of how extensive this island of stars is, that lies 12 million light years from our home galaxy. The signal-to-noise ratio could be better, but I doubt whether I am willing to sacrifice another night...

It was my first attempt with the 8"RC Telescope with the focal length reduced to just 1050mm resulting in an aperture of 5.2. The definition quality of the optics was still suboptimal, mostly because the alignment of the optical system still needed some improvement. However, by doing some cropping of the field of view the result still seems acceptable.