This image of the unbarred spiral galaxy NGC 2976 ends a very proficuous 2014, and it was imaged by the observatory shared between me and Samuel Diaz between December 18th and December 22nd. About 28 hours went into it, to properly highlight the rather conspicuous Integrated Flux Nebula.
The galaxy, that lies in the M 81 group some 11.6 million light-years away, is classified as a SA though its spiral arms are difficult to be traced. Maybe with some imagination you can see them, but the stellar matter in my picture just looks like a messy bulk.
The bright blue color seems to instantly drop off at a certain distance from the core. At first I thought this was due to some error in my post-processing, but at least one source seems to indicate that the “bright inner part of this disk appears to have a defined edge.”
The image can be seen on AstroBin too, of course, here.