Astronomy Picture of the Day [1]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 [2]See Explanation. Clicking on the picture will download the highest resolution version available. Messier 51 in 255 Hours Image Credit & [3]Copyright: [4]The Deep Sky Collective - [5]Carl Björk, Thomas Bähnck, Sebastian Donoso, Jake Gentillon, [6]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 [7]the 51st entry in Charles Messier's famous catalog. Perhaps the [8]original spiral nebula, the large galaxy with whirlpool-like spiral structure seen nearly face-on is also cataloged as NGC 5194. Its [9]spiral arms and dust lanes sweep in front of a companion galaxy (right), [10]NGC 5195. Some 31 million light-years distant, within the boundaries of the well-trained constellation [11]Canes Venatici, M51 looks faint and fuzzy to the eye in direct telescopic views. [12]But this remarkably deep image shows off stunning details of the galaxy pair's striking colors and extensive [13]tidal debris. A collaboration of astro-imagers using telescopes on planet Earth combined over 10 days of exposure time to [14]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 [15]discovered in the M51 system. Tomorrow's picture: 26 squiggles __________________________________________________________________ [16]< | [17]Archive | [18]Submissions | [19]Index | [20]Search | [21]Calendar | [22]RSS | [23]Education | [24]About APOD | [25]Discuss | [26]> __________________________________________________________________ Authors & editors: [27]Robert Nemiroff ([28]MTU) & [29]Jerry Bonnell ([30]UMCP) NASA Official: Phillip Newman [31]Specific rights apply. [32]NASA Web Privacy Policy and Important Notices A service of: [33]ASD at [34]NASA / [35]GSFC [36]NASA Science Activation & [37]Michigan Tech. U. References 1. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/archivepix.html 2. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2308/M51_255hours.jpg 3. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/lib/about_apod.html#srapply 4. https://www.astrobin.com/7hwtz0/ 5. https://elveteek.ch/en/m51-dsc 6. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkES2ltGSoc 7. http://messier.obspm.fr/m/m051.html 8. http://messier.seds.org/more/m051_rosse.html 9. https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2017/messier-51-the-whirlpool-galaxy 10. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap130831.html 11. http://www.hawastsoc.org/deepsky/cvn/index.html 12. https://www.astrobin.com/7hwtz0/ 13. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap200108.html 14. https://theastroenthusiast.com/m51-processing/ 15. https://arxiv.org/abs/1804.01699 16. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap230810.html 17. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/archivepix.html 18. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/lib/apsubmit2015.html 19. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/lib/aptree.html 20. https://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/apod/apod_search 21. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/calendar/allyears.html 22. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod.rss 23. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/lib/edlinks.html 24. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/lib/about_apod.html 25. http://asterisk.apod.com/discuss_apod.php?date=230811 26. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap230812.html 27. http://www.phy.mtu.edu/faculty/Nemiroff.html 28. http://www.phy.mtu.edu/ 29. https://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/htmltest/jbonnell/www/bonnell.html 30. http://www.astro.umd.edu/ 31. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/lib/about_apod.html#srapply 32. https://www.nasa.gov/about/highlights/HP_Privacy.html 33. https://astrophysics.gsfc.nasa.gov/ 34. https://www.nasa.gov/ 35. https://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/ 36. https://science.nasa.gov/learners 37. http://www.mtu.edu/