APRIL 2025
Between Galaxies and the Milky Way Core
April takes us deeper into galaxy season—but something is shifting. The Milky Way core is starting to rise in the early morning hours, and with it comes the return of nightscapes. And if you look carefully, you might notice something else—faint, ghostlike clouds of dust softly lit by starlight. It’s not easy to see… but it’s there. Waiting.
This month feels like standing between two worlds: the clean structure of deep space, and the glowing heart of our own galaxy. Whether you’re chasing distant spirals, capturing early arcs of the Milky Way, or hunting meteors before dawn—there’s something here for every kind of sky-watcher.
April 2025 Deep-Sky Targets
This list is part of the Cosmic Astrophotography Planner—or CAP—and I want to thank everyone who voted last month to help name it. CAP came out ahead by a clear margin, and I’m excited to keep building it together with you.
Whether you’re using a wide-field setup, a long focal-length telescope, or a smart telescope, this month has something for everyone. Galaxy season is in full swing, but April also offers hidden dust, rising nightscapes, and chances to experiment with different framing and styles.
Each description below gives you a visual introduction to the target, with highlights on what makes it interesting.
For the full breakdown—including field of view suggestions, filters, smart telescope suitability, sub-exposure lengths, total integration time, and more—you can download this month’s CAP as a PDF using the button below.
M51 – The Whirlpool Galaxy
Constellation: Canes Venatici | Distance: 31 million light-years | Size: ~11.2’ x 6.9' | Apparent Magnitude: 8.4
M51 is one of the most recognizable galaxies in the night sky, known for its elegant spiral arms and dramatic interaction with its smaller companion, NGC 5195. This ongoing galactic dance has created tidal bridges and distortions that are visible in deep exposures. It’s a classic target for astrophotographers, especially from dark skies where fainter details emerge—like background galaxies and faint outer arms. Even modest telescopes can reveal its structure with patience and careful framing.
Best for: Broadband imaging with medium to long focal lengths under dark skies. Or try this object with a smart telescope—it frames up well and produces solid results with stacking.
Telescope.live image data edited by Cosmic Captures
M101 – The Pinwheel Galaxy
Constellation: Ursa Major | Distance: 21 million light-years | Size: ~28’ × 28’ | Apparent Magnitude: 7.9
M101 is a spectacular face-on spiral with loosely wound arms, giving it a massive apparent size. It’s known for hosting more recorded supernovae than any other galaxy, and its asymmetric structure hints at gravitational interactions with nearby galaxies like NGC 5474. In deep exposures, you can capture delicate outer spiral arms and bright HII regions scattered across its disk. Adding H-alpha data enhances those nebulae, revealing just how active and dynamic this galaxy really is. It’s a superb target for wide-field imaging with plenty of detail to process.
Best for: Broadband imaging with large sensors or wide-field setups. Add H-alpha for extra depth. Also well-suited for smart telescopes.
M64 – The Black Eye Galaxy
Constellation: Coma Berenices | Distance: 17 million light-years | Size: ~10’ × 5’ | Apparent Magnitude: 8.5
Nicknamed the “Black Eye Galaxy,” M64 features a dark dust band draped across its luminous core. This visual oddity is matched by its unusual dynamics—its inner stars rotate in the opposite direction of its outer gas, the likely result of a galaxy merger in its recent past. The high surface brightness makes it accessible to smaller telescopes, and under good skies, the dust lane becomes a clear and striking feature. It’s a compact galaxy with a lot of character, perfect for those who enjoy unravelling visual and physical contrasts in a single target.
Best for: Broadband imaging with medium focal lengths from dark skies. Or try it with your smart telescope.
Telescope.live image data edited by Cosmic Captures
IFN and M81 & M82
Constellation: Ursa Major | Distance: 12 million light-years | Size: M81 ~27’ × 14’, M82 ~11’ × 5’ | Apparent Magnitude: M81: 6.9, M82: 8.4
This galaxy pair is well-known, but the true challenge lies in the surrounding region. The field is rich in Integrated Flux Nebula (IFN)—wispy clouds of high-latitude galactic dust faintly lit by the combined glow of the Milky Way. The IFN appears like a soft fog and is only visible through long integrations under dark skies. M81 is a textbook spiral galaxy, while M82, the Cigar Galaxy, is undergoing intense starburst activity, with Hα-rich outflows from its core. Together, they form a perfect subject for wide-field imaging and deep processing.
Best for: Deep broadband imaging with wide fields. Capture the IFN with long integration and dark-sky conditions.
Omega Centauri – NGC 5139
Omega Centauri – NGC 5139
Constellation: Centaurus | Distance: 17,000 light-years | Size: ~36' | Apparent Magnitude: 3.9
Omega Centauri is the largest and brightest globular cluster in the sky, and a standout Southern Hemisphere object. With millions of stars densely packed into a single field, it often resolves beautifully even in short exposures. Some researchers believe Omega Centauri could be the stripped core of a dwarf galaxy long since absorbed by the Milky Way. With long integrations and wide framing, you may even pick up faint dust structures from the interstellar medium (ISM) in the surrounding region.
Best for: Broadband imaging with short to medium focal lengths. A wider field (~3x2°) is needed to capture ISM features. You can also capture it with a smart telescope but be careful to avoid edge cropping.
Centaurus A – NGC 5128
Constellation: Centaurus | Distance: 12 million light-years | Size: ~25.7’ x 20.0' | Apparent Magnitude: 6.8
Centaurus A is a peculiar elliptical galaxy with a dark dust lane slicing through its centre—a clear marker of a spiral galaxy merger. It’s among the closest active galaxies and a strong radio source due to the supermassive black hole at its core. The contrast between its smooth elliptical halo and the chaotic dust band makes it a compelling imaging target. H-alpha integration can bring out star-forming knots along the lane, and deep exposures may begin to reveal its extended stellar halo.
Best for: Broadband imaging with medium to high focal lengths. Hα adds subtle contrast to central features.
Telescope.live image data edited by Cosmic Captures
NGC 3576 – The Statue of Liberty Nebula
Constellation: Carina | Distance: 9,000 light-years | Size: ~40’ | Apparent Magnitude: 7.0
This vibrant emission nebula showcases towering pillars and complex filaments sculpted by intense stellar winds and radiation from young stars. Known as the "Statue of Liberty Nebula" for its visual resemblance, it's an ideal narrowband target. Long exposures with Hα, OIII, and SII reveal intricate details, and there is plenty of creative freedom when choosing a colour palette. SHO, Foraxx, or custom blends all work beautifully, and dual-band Hα/OIII filters are great for OSC imagers.
Best for: Narrowband imaging with short to medium focal lengths. SHO and H/O combinations both yield striking results.
Telescope.live image data edited by Cosmic Captures
The main Moon Phases in April 2025
Planning your imaging sessions? The Moon plays a massive role in what we can capture.
Here’s what’s happening this month:
First Quarter
April 5
Deep-sky imaging best after midnight.
Also great for capturing lunar surface details with strong shadows along the terminator.
Full Moon
April 13
The Full Moon in April 2025, known as the Pink Moon, will occur on April 13.
Last Quarter
April 21
Deep-sky imaging is best in the first half of the night before the Moon rises in the early morning hours.
New Moon
April 27
The darkest skies of the month arrive with the New Moon, ideal for deep-sky imaging.
April 2025 MAP
(Moonlight Astrophotography Planner)
Each month, the MAP (Moonlight Astrophotography Planner) helps you choose the best nights for imaging galaxies, nebulae, and nightscapes. Whether you’re shooting broadband or narrowband, MAP gives you clear guidance based on the Moon phase, so you can match your imaging style to the sky conditions.
And starting this month, I’ve added meteor showers to the planner too—beginning with the Lyrids, which peak on April 21-22.
You can download this month’s MAP as a PDF below—it’s free and updated monthly to help you make the most of your imaging time.
Meteor Showers – April 2025
The Lyrids are the first major meteor shower of the year, peaking on the night of April 21–22. They’re known for fast, bright meteors—and occasionally, unexpected bursts of activity that go far beyond the norm.
The best time to watch is late evening on April 21, before the Last Quarter Moon rises in the early hours. Under dark skies, you might see 10 to 15 meteors per hour, and some will leave persistent glowing trails—like contrails slowly fading across the stars.
The radiant lies near the bright star Vega, in the constellation Lyra, which rises in the northeast and climbs highest before dawn. That means the Lyrids favor the Northern Hemisphere, but they can still be seen worldwide, just in smaller numbers in the south.
The shower comes from Comet Thatcher (C/1861 G1), whose dust trail Earth intersects each April.
This year, I’ve also added the Lyrids to the Moonlight Astrophotography Planner (MAP)—so you can time your imaging sessions with both moonlight and meteor activity in mind.
2024 Perseids with Aurora Borealis
Nightscape Opportunities
The Milky Way in April
April is where nightscape season really begins to take shape.
In the Southern Hemisphere, the Milky Way core climbs higher each night, becoming fully visible well before dawn. This is the perfect time to capture tracked wide-field images or plan large panoramas of the galactic center. With clear autumn skies and strong foreground contrast, it’s one of the most rewarding times of year to shoot the Milky Way.
In the Northern Hemisphere, the core is just beginning to return—rising low in the southeast in the early morning hours.
It’s a short window, but with the right location and timing, you can start capturing those first arcs of the season. April also marks the last chance to photograph the fainter winter Milky Way, still visible in the evening sky.
Whether you’re chasing silhouettes under a rising core or planning your first panorama of the year, April is when the nightscape season begins to wake up.