                        Astronomy Picture of the Day

    Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
      fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
                    written by a professional astronomer.

                               2023 August 11

                           Messier 51 in 255 Hours
       Image Credit & Copyright: The Deep Sky Collective - Carl Björk,
     Thomas Bähnck, 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 Schöfbänker, 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.

                      Tomorrow's picture: 26 squiggles
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       Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
            NASA Official: Phillip Newman Specific rights apply.
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                             & Michigan Tech. U.

