NGC 2903 - Galaxy in "Leo"

NGC 2903 - Galaxy in "Leo"

NGC 2903 is a barred spiral galaxy located in the constellation Leo, approximately 20.5 million light-years away from us. It was discovered by William Herschel and cataloged on November 16, 1784. This galaxy bears many similarities to our Milky Way.

Its size is only slightly smaller than ours, with a diameter of about 80,000 light-years. The central region of the galaxy exhibits an exceptional rate of star formation, concentrated in a ring around the nucleus, measuring just over 600 parsecs in diameter. This ring not only contains a large number of bright young stars but also several "emission nebulae" with luminosity comparable to that of the Tarantula Nebula, exhibiting high frequencies in radio waves, infrared, ultraviolet, and X-rays.

The data acquisition took place on February 18, 2023, at "La Valle" in Maruggio (TA), one of the official sites of the Gruppo Astrofili Salentini of which I am a member.

I used an RC8 telescope with an Asi 294 mc pro astronomical camera on an Heq5pro mount.

This image is a result of a total of 11 hours of exposure time using two filters, the Optolong L-Pro and the Antlia Triband RGB Ultra, and it was processed using PixInsight and Camera Raw.