Learn

      • Blog
      • Academy
      • About us
      • Forum

      Legal

      • Privacy Policy
      • Cookie Policy
      • Terms & Conditions

      Pricing

      • Plans

      Tutorials

      • All tutorials
      • Our tutors
      • Webinars

      Follow us

      • Facebook
      • Instagram
      M51 Whirlpool galaxy and NGC 5195.
      Wallpaper author:
      Ray Astro Explorer

      09 Apr 2024

      M51 Whirlpool galaxy and NGC 5195.

      When galaxies collide it's the smaller of the two that ends up being impacted the most. Here the major galaxy M51 (NGC 5194) is tearing chunks out of its dwarf neighbour NGC5195, however, not without being re-shaped itself. Gravitational forces from the encounter have resulted in the tightly wound spiral arms that give it the appearance of the name it has been assigned.

      Great detail from this telescope on this bright object and I don't regret starting over again on some steps of processing to make the best use of the data. Used an image from Hubble to keep the details as accurate as possible when deconvolving. This is one of my favourite galaxies.


      Dataset from which the image was processed

      M51

      9 credit

      Open
      Telescope Live
      SPA-2-CMOS
      • Type of target
        ............................................................................................................................
        Galaxy
      • Camera
        ............................................................................................................................
        QHY 600M
      • Target coordinates
        ............................................................................................................................
        RA 202.4696 Dec 47.1953
      • Hemisphere
        ............................................................................................................................
        Northern
      • Telescope location
        ............................................................................................................................
        Spain
      • Transient event
        ............................................................................................................................
        No
      • Observed on
        ............................................................................................................................
        26 Mar 2023 - 17 Jul 2023
      Filter
      Avg Exp (s)
      Total Exposure
      Subframes
      Luminance881h56m79
      Red1583h28m79
      Green1503h18m79
      Blue1222h40m79
      Halpha821h46m78

      M51 Whirlpool galaxy and NGC 5195.