The Cat's Eye Galaxy: Messier 94 in Canes Venatici | Kitt Peak National Observatory

The Cat's Eye Galaxy: Messier 94 in Canes Venatici | Kitt Peak National Observatory

Messier 94 (also known as NGC 4736, Cat's Eye Galaxy, Crocodile Eye Galaxy, or Croc's Eye Galaxy) is a spiral galaxy in the mid-northern constellation Canes Venatici. It was discovered by Pierre Méchain in 1781, and cataloged by Charles Messier two days later. 

Spiral galaxy M94 in the constellation Canes Venatici has been considered to be in a group including M64 and other fainter galaxies. It has an extremely bright innner region surrounded by a blue ring of young star clusters, then a fainter yellowish region of older stars also surrounded by traces of young stars, and even further out a very much fainter outer ring. All of these features are visible in this picture, due to the use of a drastically compressed intensity mapping. This stretch also reveals quite a few small faint background galaxies. This picture was taken in May 1998 at the KPNO 0.9-meter telescope. Image size 17.0 arc minutes.

Credit: Hillary Mathis, N.A.Sharp/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/
Release Date: Dec. 16, 2002

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