NGC 4244 Galaxy, also known as Caldwell 26 or The Silver Needle Galaxy is an edge-on loose spiral galaxy in the constellation Canes Venatici, and is part of the M94 Group or Canes Venatici I Group, a galaxy group relatively close to the Local Group containing the Milky Way.
Visually it appears around 10th magnitude, and is a long thin(17 arc min x 7 arc min) needle like galaxy! I never had noticed the small dark dust lane near the stellar looking core before, but the dark dust lane is visible in this sharp image.
NGC 4244 is located about 14.1 Million light years away.
The bright 6.73 magnitude star at the right edge of this image is HIP 60161.
Captured on 04-01-2021 with my Explore Scientific 102mm Triplet APO Refractor telescope, Bisque ME Mount, QHY 183C Cooled Cmos Camera, 150min exposure, (30 x 300sec subs), SkyX Camera capture software, PHD2, DSS, Pixinsight, & Adobe CS 2021.
Best Regards,
John Chumack
www.galacticimages.com
