The Whirlpool Galaxy - II

Spiral Galaxy in Canes Venatici

Uploaded 5/13/06

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There are few objects in the sky as inspiring as the Whirlpool Galaxy. Consisting of a face on Sa(s)s Pec class object, it is visibly interacting with the very bizarre NGC5195 to its left, which has been stripped of its blue stars completely. It is classed as an IO Pec type, very unusual. M51 is a whopping 10 x 8 arcminutes at 9th magnitude, and its companion is 5.8 arcminutes at 10.5 magnitude. Also note the proliferation of blue stellar associations and pink HII regions in the spiral arms. The inclination of M51 has been measured from the radial velocity to be 1 degree.

A plethora of background galaxies predominate this image. One of the most interesting is IC4278, just below NGC5195 an usual type I galaxy and looking very much like a streaking comets trail.

Additional Processing Notes:

To subtly emphasize the prolific hydrogen in the arms of this galaxy, an additional 2h of Halpha data was taken through a 6nm bandpass Astrodon filter. This was combined with the red channel at 100 percent (Halpha) and the blue at 20 percent (Hbeta) in such a way as to not alter the precise G2V balance of this image.

Instrument: 12.5" f/5 Home made Newtonian Platform: Astrophysics 1200 QMD CCD Camera: SBIG 10XME NABG with Enhanced Water Cooling Guider: SBIG ST4 Exposure: LRGB = 60:20:20:20 (RGB Binned 2x2) + 120m of Halpha blended into R and B RGB Combine Ratio: 1: 1.05: 1.11 Filters: AstroDon RGB Tricolor Location: Payson, Arizona Elevation: 5150 ft. Sky: Seeing FWHM = 5 arcsec (Maxim DL - 10min subframe), Transparency 8/10 Outside Temperature: 45 F CCD Temperature: -30 C Processing Tools: Maxim DL, Gralaks Sigma, Photoshop, PixInsight, CCDOps Debloomer. HOME GALAXIES EMISSION NEBS REFLECTION NEBS COMETS GLOBULARS OPEN CLUST PLANETARIES LINKS
 

 
 


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