Messier 109

 I've never been able to get a decent image of M109, mostly because of its location in the sky relative to my rather forested observation site. The Seestar solved that problem; Its portability enabled me to put it in a location where I could perform longer integrations. Despite clouds, I was able to capture 79 minutes of data. While the resulting image is noisy, the weakly barred structure of the galaxy is clearly visible, along with faint dust lanes. It is thought the galaxy has a close resemblance in size and structure to our own Milky Way. M109's satellite galaxies, UGC 6969, UGC 6940 and UGC 6923 are also visible in the image. I hope to be able to collect more data on this object once the clouds clear here in North Carolina!