( Apr – May ) - 2026

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Cat's Eye Galaxy, M94, NGC 4736

Messier 94 is a beautiful spiral galaxy, that has the shape of a feline's eye.

M94 is part of the Canes Venatici I Cloud, which is home to about 20 galaxies, including the Black Eye galaxy. Messier 94 is the brightest one of the group.

Lost Galaxy, NGC 4535

Discovered by William Herschel in 1785, this barred spiral galaxy is one of the largest in the Virgo cluster. Even though the size of this galactic cluster is about the same as the cluster in which the Milky Way is included, the Virgo cluster itself contains 50 times more galaxies! From the Earth, the galaxy's disk is nearly seen face-on, allowing us to admire two of its main properties: on the one hand blue outer spiral arms indicate young, bright and warm stars. On the other hand, a yellowish nucleus highlights a rather old and cold stellar population.

Crab Nebula, M1, NGC 1952

The Crab Nebula, also known as Ml, is a supernova remnant in the Taurus constellation. In 1054, a star exploded and was spotted in the sky by Chinese and Japanese astronomers. In 1731, nearly 700 years later, astronomer

John Bevis discovered a nebula in this region. It wasn't until the 20th century however that the nebula was determined to be a supernova remnant with a pulsar, corpse of the massive exploded star, embedded in its center.

The nebula, which is expanding at 1,500 km/s, exhibits a diversity of colors. This mosaic of colors comes from different atomic elements that shine in different colors. The orange regions consist of hydrogen. Oxygen shines blue in the outer parts. The hotter inner parts emit red light, and the green is sulfur. These colors are the result of the pulsar, approximately 20 km in diameter and 200,000 times brighter than the Sun, heating the remnant.