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NGC 2403 (Caldwell 7) · Spiral Galaxy

NGC 2403

A bright, richly-detailed spiral galaxy in Camelopardalis, studded with glowing pink star-forming regions along its loosely-wound arms.

NGC 2403 is an intermediate spiral galaxy about 8 million light-years away, an outlying member of the M81 group. It was the first galaxy beyond our Local Group found to contain Cepheid variable stars, and it is famous for its unusually large and luminous H II regions — vast clouds of glowing hydrogen where new stars are forming, scattered like rubies along the spiral arms.

Discovered by William Herschel in 1788, it sits in the faint northern constellation Camelopardalis and rides high overhead from northern latitudes through the winter and spring. Its bright knots and clumpy, asymmetric arms make it a rewarding target for medium apertures.

This image was taken with a mono camera through LRGB and hydrogen-alpha filters on the 200 mm Newtonian, which picks out the pink HII complexes against the galaxy's blue spiral structure.

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