The Whirlpool Galaxy (M51)
Tom O'Donoghue

The Whirlpool Galaxy (M51)

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Messier 51, also known as the Whirlpool Galaxy is a face on spiral arm galaxy in the constellation Canes Venatici. At 23 million light years distance, and being one of the brighter galaxies in the sky, this is one of the most photographed deep sky objects.

The Whirlpool Galaxy was first sketched depicting the spiral arms, by Lord Rosse in the 1845 through the world's largest telescope at the time, located in Birr, Co. Offaly in Ireland. Lord Rosse thought it was a nebula, as galaxies had not been known about at this time. M51 is not the only galaxy in the image. NGC5194 an Elliptical galaxy to the left of the image is interacting with M51, at the end of the spiral arm. The interaction can be seen as the dust of NGC5194 is being pulled away from the galaxies.

This image has 10hrs of LRGB data, with 90mins of Ha added to show the star birth regions in the galaxy. These are the pink areas, which themselves are nebulae in the galaxy.

Note: All our prints are printed on Baryta 325g Paper, which is an excellent paper for framing. The paper is a gloss type, which gives very vivid colour views.