The famous Whirlpool galaxy M51 was one of Messier's
original discoveries: He discovered it on October 13, 1773, when observing a
comet. Its companion, NGC 5195, was discovered in 1781 by his friend, Pierre
Mechain. The Whirlpool Galaxy is a relatively near neighbor of our own Galaxy,
the Milky Way Galaxy., ¨only¨ 37 million light years. It was the first
"spiral nebula" identified by astronomers.
Wide field view of M51 region. Image is obtained through Celestron 102mm/f5 refractor on Canon EOS 300D. Image is assembled of ten 30-second exposures, two 100second and one 300 second exposures at 1600 ASA (dark substracted and processed in Photoshop - field of view is 1,5x1 degree)
Image obtained through a Celestron 9,25 at f3,3 and Pixcel 237 CCD (8x40
second exposure and 37x25 second exposure are stacked together in CCDSoftv5
and AIP for Win).
Color
i mage taken with Celestron Pixcel 237 CCD camera through a C8 at f:3,3. LRGB
image is assembled of luminance image (20x30 second) and RGB image ( Red 15x30
second, Green 7x30 second and Blue 16x30 second). Processed in Photoshop.
|
