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
     __________________________________________________________________

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    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/