**NGC 6744 – The Pavo Galaxy** - 6 hrs exposure

A recent shot I took of one of the largest spiral galaxies in our local region of the universe, NGC 6744, in the constellation Pavo.
This enormous galaxy lies around 25 million light-years away and is often considered a close analogue of our own Milky Way. It contains hundreds of billions of stars, many likely accompanied by their own planetary systems. Imagine the sheer number of worlds that exist within it – and the possibility of life among them.
The Pavo Galaxy shares a similar barred central structure and sweeping spiral arms with the Milky Way, but its disk stretches roughly 175,000 light-years across – almost twice the diameter of our galaxy.
The individual stars scattered across the image are much closer, sitting within our own Milky Way. We are peering through these foreground stars and then far beyond our galaxy, across the vast emptiness of intergalactic space, to NGC 6744 at an almost unimaginable distance.
Seen from the outside, our own Milky Way would look something like the Pavo Galaxy – a vast barred spiral suspended in space – although from the same distance, it would appear considerably smaller, and our Sun, a tiny inconceivable speck within it.

Telescope - RC6 Carbon - 1370mm
Cam - ASI 533mm pro @ -30C cooled
Exposure - LRGB 5hrs / Halpha - 1hr

Pixinsight