Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Canes Venatici (CVn)  ·  Contains:  IC 4277  ·  IC 4278  ·  M 51  ·  NGC 5194  ·  NGC 5195  ·  Whirlpool Galaxy
Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
M51 - The Whirlpool Galaxy, Wanda Conde
Powered byPixInsight

M51 - The Whirlpool Galaxy

Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
M51 - The Whirlpool Galaxy, Wanda Conde
Powered byPixInsight

M51 - The Whirlpool Galaxy

Equipment

Loading...

Acquisition details

Loading...

Description

Here is an image of M51, better known as the Whirlpool Galaxy. This galaxy is located 30 million light years away in the constellation Canes Venatici (the Hunting Dogs) and is one of the best known galaxies and is also very conspicuous in the sky. It is made up of two galaxies (M51a and M51b) which collided about 500 million years ago and are still interacting with each other. I am grateful to Steven Mazlin who kindly shared with me the data that he captured with his 16" RCOS telescope and an SBIG STL11K camera from the dark skies of New Mexico and made it possible for me to practice my processing skills and at the same time achieve this beautiful image.

Exposure times:

Lum - 67 frames 900 secs

RGB - 47 frames 900 secs

Ha - 28 frames 1,800 secs

It was 100% processed using PixInsight.

Comments

Sky plot

Sky plot

Histogram

M51 - The Whirlpool Galaxy, Wanda Conde