M51 Widefield, Tim Stone

M51 Widefield

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Description

M51 and its companion, NGC 5195, are a beautiful pair of interacting galaxies, 23 million light years distant. Because of its proximity to us, it has been extensively studied to increase our understanding of interacting galactic systems. Because of its unique beauty, it has been photographed by virtually every astrophotographer on this planet.

I've wanted to make a quality image of this galaxy for some time. I made an image in April of 2013 which was only partially successful. It had a couple of problems: I did not achieve a good focus, so the image was soft, and the framing I used placed the galaxy too far off center for a pleasing composition.

This year I acquired two sets of data, one with the 17" Planewave and the other with the 10" Takahashi CCA250. Adding this data to the 2013 data and combining the data from the two instruments rendered this 44 megapixel image with the detail and beauty I envisioned over a year ago. It also contains quite a few other brighter galaxies, as well as hundreds of background galaxies as faint as 20th magnitude. It's astonishing to me that five minute subframes with a 10" telescope can record objects that faint!

Be sure you look at the full resolution version to see all the great detail that gets lost in the smaller sizes. I've also uploaded the full resolution version of the image from the 17".

M51 and NGC 5195 are not the only interacting pair in this image. NGC 5256, or Markarian 266, is a train wreck of two colliding spiral galaxies. I was unaware of this object until I saw it in this image. It was so strange I thought it must have been a reflection or some kind of optical artifact.

Image acquired at Prairie Sky Observatory and Sugar Grove Observatory, facilities of Twin City Amateur Astronomers (tcaa.us).

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M51 Widefield, Tim Stone