Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Canes Venatici (CVn)  ·  Contains:  IC 4277  ·  IC 4278  ·  M 51  ·  NGC 5194  ·  NGC 5195  ·  Whirlpool Galaxy
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M51, Dan Kusz
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M51

Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
M51, Dan Kusz
Powered byPixInsight

M51

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Description

M51, the Whirlpool Galaxy. A dance of destruction for one Galaxy and new birth for another. I imaged this with my Edge 8hd to get in as close as I could to show galactic structure in the image. I never had time to capture Ha due to weather, but maybe a future image revision. I struggled producing an image I was happy with, I'm really missing the Ha, but I still think I was able to deliver the detail I was looking for in this version.

Whirlpool Galaxy lies 31 million light-years from Earth and has an estimated diameter of 76,000 light-years. Overall the galaxy is about 43% the size of the Milky Way. Its mass is estimated to be 160 billion solar masses or around 10.3% of the mass of Milky Way Galaxy.

Thank you for looking!

CS

Dan.

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