Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Canes Venatici (CVn)  ·  Contains:  IC 4263  ·  IC 4277  ·  M 51  ·  NGC 5194  ·  NGC 5195  ·  Whirlpool Galaxy
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M51,  Whirlpool Galaxy (plus NGC 5195 + other fainter fuzzies), Doug Summers
M51,  Whirlpool Galaxy (plus NGC 5195 + other fainter fuzzies)
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M51, Whirlpool Galaxy (plus NGC 5195 + other fainter fuzzies)

Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
M51,  Whirlpool Galaxy (plus NGC 5195 + other fainter fuzzies), Doug Summers
M51,  Whirlpool Galaxy (plus NGC 5195 + other fainter fuzzies)
Powered byPixInsight

M51, Whirlpool Galaxy (plus NGC 5195 + other fainter fuzzies)

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Description

Quintessential Messier 51, the Whirlpool in close encounter with NGC 5195. M51 is 31 million light years distant, with a diameter of 76K light years.

I captured an initial image in April of 2020, but returned to it in March of 2021 for a majority of the subexposures. Captured with a RASA11 @ f/2.2, the best 250 subs were kept. I ran photometric color calibration on this image, and was surprised to see that it's a bit lighter blue than I expected. Some pink H II regions are evident also. There are several smaller galaxies in the field.

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  • M51,  Whirlpool Galaxy (plus NGC 5195 + other fainter fuzzies), Doug Summers
    Original
  • M51,  Whirlpool Galaxy (plus NGC 5195 + other fainter fuzzies), Doug Summers
    C
  • Final
    M51,  Whirlpool Galaxy (plus NGC 5195 + other fainter fuzzies), Doug Summers
    D

C

Description: Degreen a bit, and add some deconvolution to dust/gas. Also a bit of star bloat correction.

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D

Description: generalized reprocessing after BXT

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M51,  Whirlpool Galaxy (plus NGC 5195 + other fainter fuzzies), Doug Summers