Galaxy Pictures by Dick Locke
Copyright © 1998-2008, Dick Locke.  All Rights Reserved.  Contact and Image Use Information 

Galaxies are ginormous collections of stars and other cosmic stuff.  Many of them, including our own, are shaped like (and spin like) a Frisbee.  We see some galaxies "edge-on", as with the hamburger-ish member of the Lio Trio, below.  Some we see with the frisbee at various angles, and some "top-on" like M101.


The Andromeda Galaxy M31

I updated my Andromeda picture late 2010 after re-shooting from the dark skies of West Texas.


NGC 3628, from my Leo Trio page

Abell Galaxy Clusters from 2009


Markarian's Chain of Galaxies - 2009


Centaurus A, 1/2006


The Andromeda Galaxy, M31


M33 Page
(20Da)


M81 and M82

old: M81/82, plus M101


NGC 253, 20Da (Sculptor Galaxy)


Leo Trio 


M83


M101, Pinwheel Galaxy


M64, Black-eye Galaxy


M109


M108


NGC 1365


Antennae, or Ringtail Galaxies


Sombrero Galaxy, M104


The other M33 page


NGC 1399 (& Scattered Galaxies with Mouseover Chart)


M98 and M99


M109 plus many dim fuzzies

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NGC 891


M106 and Friends


M108


Galaxies M96, M105


M63


M59 and M60


Galaxy NGC 1365 is near NGC 55;

NGC 55, scroll down

M51, The Whirlpool Galaxy Page

What is a galaxy, exactly?  (from SEDS):

Galaxies are large systems of stars and interstellar matter, typically containing several million to some trillion stars, of masses between several million and several trillion times that of our Sun, of an extension of a few thousands to several 100,000s light years, typically separated by millions of light years distance. They come in a variety of flavors: Spiral, lenticular, elliptical and irregular. Besides simple stars, they typically contain various types of star clusters and nebulae.

We live in a giant spiral galaxy, the Milky Way Galaxy, of 100,000 light years diameter and a mass of roughly a trillion solar masses. The nearest dwarf galaxies, satellites of the Milky Way, are only a few 100,000 light years distant, while the nearest giant neighbor, the Andromeda Galaxy, also a spiral, is about 2-3 million light years distant.

Older images above used a  Nikon D100 DSLR, newer the Canon EOS D20a

Messier Pictures, Images by Dick Locke

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