by Bruce Waddington
Roughly the same size as our galaxy but over 31M l-y away, M74 is called a “grand design spiral” because of its face-on orientation and symmetric spiral arm structure. The reddish-pink areas are ionized hydrogen, home to new star formation. 8.5 hours of images were taken in Sept. 2011 from Anza, CA using a 10-inch SCT and ST-2K camera at f/7.