M94 in Canes Venatici

The galaxy M94 is obvious in any decent telescope due to its small but intensely bright central region. The surrounding disk is fainter, but it can reveal traces of tightly wound spiral arms under good conditions. My image shows something else as well, a faint, diffuse outer ring of stars that hints at a turbulent history.

This was made with my 92mm refractor from about 30 5-minute exposures using a ZWO ASI294MC Pro camera. My site was in the Mojave Desert with a Bortle Scale number of about 3.