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Credit & Copyright: The Deep Sky Collective -
Carl Björk,
Thomas Böhnck, Sebastian Donoso, Jake Gentillon, Antoine and Dalia Grelin, Stephen Guberski, Richard Hall,
Tino Heuberger, Jason Jacks, Paul Kent, Brian Meyers, William Ostling, Nicolas Puig, Tim Schaeffer, Felix Schöfbönker, Mikhail Vasilev
Explanation:
An intriguing pair of interacting galaxies, M51 is
the 51st entry
in Charles Messier's famous catalog.
Perhaps the
original spiral nebula,
the large galaxy with whirlpool-like spiral structure seen nearly face-on
is also cataloged as NGC 5194.
Its
spiral
arms and dust lanes
sweep in front of a companion galaxy (right),
NGC 5195.
Some 31 million light-years distant,
within the boundaries of the well-trained constellation
Canes
Venatici,
M51 looks faint and fuzzy to the eye in direct telescopic views.
But this remarkably deep image
shows off stunning details of the galaxy pair's
striking colors and extensive tidal debris.
A collaboration of astro-imagers using telescopes on planet Earth
combined over 10 days of exposure time to
create this definitive galaxy
portrait of M51.
The image includes 118 hours of narrowband data
that also reveals a vast glowing cloud of reddish ionized hydrogen gas
discovered in the M51
system.
Thomas Böhnck, Sebastian Donoso, Jake Gentillon, Antoine and Dalia Grelin, Stephen Guberski, Richard Hall,
Tino Heuberger, Jason Jacks, Paul Kent, Brian Meyers, William Ostling, Nicolas Puig, Tim Schaeffer, Felix Schöfbönker, Mikhail Vasilev
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NASA Official: Jay Norris. Specific rights apply.
A service of: LHEA at NASA / GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.
Based on Astronomy Picture
Of the Day
Publications with keywords: M 51
Publications with words: M 51
See also: