There's estimated to be around 300,000 - 500,000 stars in this cluster. These homies are only roughly 25k light years away from us and span 150 light years across. They're very close to us in galactic terms. As made obvious by its nickname, they hang out in the Hercules constellation.
Captured with my SeeStarS50 83°W 42°E. Roughly 90 minute capture time on 5/14/26
Captured using a Seestar S50 4/26/26 83°W, 42°N - 1hr exposure time.
The M106 is a whopping 25 million light years away, meaning this light was sent to us around the time early apes just started appearing on Earth. We are looking through a time machine at the long distant past. It's considered an active galaxy, as it's anomalous arms are being shocked/heated by its central black hole.
As an added bonus, also got the bright star "Chara" in this frame (bottom right). Got lucky with clear weather capturing all 4 of these in a single frame!
By comparison, the star in corner "Chara" is only 27 light years away. That homie is very close in properties to our own sun and explains why its very bright to us compared to the other stars in that region.
We're seeing multiple layers of the universes depth in one frame. By far my favorite picture yet! I will definitely revisit this galaxy as it has a ton of neighbors in proximity that are not in this shot.