Caldwell 65 (C65) or NGC 253

Sometimes called the Sculptor Galaxy or sometimes the Silver Dollar Galaxy. This is the largest galaxy of the nearest group of galaxies to us. It's also the closest galaxy of that group, about 11 light years away. Only Andromeda, the biggest galaxy of our local group appears larger and brighter. At 25 degrees below the celestial equator it is quite low to the south for mid latitude northern observers, but still, in a clear dark sky it is fairly easily spotted with binoculars. It's about as wide as the full moon. You'll need at least a 12" scope to see detail. The best time to see it is during the autumn months. That is also when Andromeda is at its best, and in fact C65 is almost straight down (about 70 deg down) from Andromeda.

You will notice a fairly bright core area and a bar shaped structure there running at a slight angle from lower left to upper right . The brightness is actually many many times greater than shown here because the light has to shine through a lot of this galaxy's dust, and C65 is an unusually dusty galaxy. There is a prodigious amount of star forming activity going on around the central area. We know this because other types of telescopes that look at other wavelengths reveal a lot of X ray, gamma ray,  radio wave and galactic super winds coming from that area. All these are associated with star burst galaxies, where 100's of thousands of stars are created every year. That contrasts to our sedate Milky Way, where it is estimated  30-40 new stars light up every year. The bar structure is not well developed, but is strong enough to make it an intermediate example between prototypical spiral and barred galaxies. M61 is another such intermediate example, and an example of what this galaxy might look like face on. C65 is about 70 million light years across, about 70% as large as our Milky Way. From here on earth it appears to be about 27 x 7 arc minutes in size with surface brightness around the core of mag 8.

10" F6.3 Schmidt Cassegrain Telescope with a coma corrector, Modified Canon 40D camera at prime focus
12 photos, each with 300 sec exposure at ISO 1600
Photos were aligned and averaged together, then brightness, color, and contrast enhanced