The Sculptor Galaxy, NGC 253, is a magnificent spiral galaxy that graces our night sky from the constellation Sculptor. Its remarkable beauty lies in its intricate spiral arms, which swirl with bright, young stars and cosmic dust lanes. Located about 11 million light-years away, this galaxy's central region harbors intense star formation, evident in the luminous clusters of blue, while the surrounding arms stretch out gracefully like a cosmic pinwheel. The Sculptor Galaxy's visual appeal and proximity make it a favorite target for both amateur and professional astronomers seeking to unravel the mysteries of our universe.

Image Description and Details : Taken with my 36.8 cm F9 Ritchey Chretien and STXL6303 CCD camera from my backyard observatory in Canberra Australia. This is a standard LRGB image with luminance = red = green = blue = 50 minutes. Processing in MaximDL, Pixinsight and Adobe photoshop CC

Copyright: Steve Crouch

NGC 3621 is a spiral galaxy located 22 Mly away in the constellation of Hydra. It is very bright and can be well seen in moderate-sized telescopes. The galaxy is around 93,000 ly across and is at an angle of 25° from being viewed edge on.

It shines with a luminosity equal to 13 billion times that of the our Sun. This galaxy has an active nucleus that matches a Seyfert 2 optical spectrum, suggesting that a low mass supermassive black hole is present at the core. Based upon the motion of stars in the nucleus, this object may have a mass of up to three million times the mass of the Sun.