M 94
M 94
Spiral galaxy M94 was classified Sab because of its extremely bright inner region (overexposed in our image). This bright circular disk is surrounded by a ring of active star-forming regions, traced by blue young star clusters in color images, which sharply seperates it from a much less bright outer ring of an older yellowish stellar population. In the outskirts, this region however ends again in a ring with moderate star formation activity, so that M94 is one of the relatively rare galaxies in which two "waves" of stellar formation can be observed. In very long exposures, a further very faint ring, about 15 arc minutes across, becomes visible, a suggestion of which is visible in the DSSM image of M94, but see also the inset in the Hubble Atlas of Galaxies.
| Right ascension | 12 : 48.6 (hours : minutes) |
|---|---|
| Declination | +41 : 23 (degrees : minutes) |
| Distance | 14500.0 (light-years*10^3) |
| Visual magnitude | 7.9 |
