Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Canes Venatici (CVn)  ·  Contains:  IC 4263  ·  M 51  ·  NGC 5194  ·  NGC 5195  ·  Whirlpool Galaxy
M51 (LRGB), Chris Kagy
M51 (LRGB)
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M51 (LRGB)

M51 (LRGB), Chris Kagy
M51 (LRGB)
Powered byPixInsight

M51 (LRGB)

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Description

This is the Whirlpool Galaxy, also known as Messier 51 (or M51) to astronomers. You can see there are actually 2 galaxies in the process of merging. The larger of the two is about 75,000 lightyears across. That is about 75% of the size of our galaxy, the Milky Way. The light from these galaxies took about 23 million years to reach Earth.

Over 5 nights I captured about 9 hours worth of 20s L exposures, and 1 hour each of 20s RGB. Stack and combined in Astropixel Processor, and massaged in Photoshop

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M51 (LRGB), Chris Kagy

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