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M51, John Bozeman

M51

Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
M51, John Bozeman

M51

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Description

The Whirlpool Galaxy, also known as Messier 51a or NGC 5194, is an interacting grand-design spiral galaxy with a Seyfert 2 active galactic nucleus. It lies in the constellation Canes Venatici, and was the first galaxy to be classified as a spiral galaxy.

Distance to Earth: 23.16 million light years
Age: 400.3 million years
Stars: 100 billion

The horizontal black bar crossing the image is the division between the two CCD sensors in the WFC3 camera. I usually do a few tricks to make it disappear, but left it intact in this instance. 

Data from the Hubble Space Telescope MAST Portal. Release date: 2023-07-10

Camera: WFC3

Color Mapped:

Red-F814W/F606W
Green-F336W/F475W
Blue-F277W

Processed with FITS Liberator, GraXpert, PixInsight and Photoshop 2023.

Comments

Histogram

M51, John Bozeman