A beautiful, grand design spiral galaxy in the constellation “Hydra”. It lies about 35 million light years away, and is about 2/3rds the size of our Milky Way. Note the two bright 10th magnitude stars that stand like sentinels on either side.

12 1/2″ Ritchey-Chretien Telscope with an ST10XE/CFW8. F/6 LRGB (44/7min BW, 10/5min RGB 2c2bin. Scaled on MaximDL at 1.0 R, 1.0 G, 1.6 B.)