M51 (Whirlpool)
noirlab_noao-m51haase February 20th, 2014
Credit: KPNO/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/George Hatfield and Flynn Haase
A spiral galaxy very similar to our own Milky Way, seen face-on. There are a couple of hundred billion stars here. The dark splotches are dust clouds, and the tiny pink spots are star forming regions, where new stars (and probably solar systems) are born.The bright object to the right is another galaxy, a small barred spiral captured by M51. Eventually, they will merge, making a single large galaxy (probably very distorted from its present state). Both galaxies are about 35 million light-years away.Go to the NOAO image gallery entry for M51 for more information on these galaxies. This image was taken as part of Advanced Observing Program (AOP) program at Kitt Peak Visitor Center during 2014.
Provider: NOIRLab
Image Source: https://noirlab.edu/public/images/noao-m51haase/
Curator: NSF's NOIRLab, Tucson, AZ, USA
Image Use Policy: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
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Full Size Image
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Image Details
Position Details
Color Mapping
- ID
- noao-m51haase
- Subject Category
- Subject Name
- M51
- Credits
- KPNO/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/George Hatfield and Flynn Haase
- Release Date
- 2014-02-20T08:04:51
- Lightyears
- Redshift
- Reference Url
- https://noirlab.edu/public/images/noao-m51haase/
- Type
- Observation
- Image Quality
- Distance Notes
- Facility
- Visitor Center 0.5-meter Telescope, Visitor Center 0.5-meter Telescope, Visitor Center 0.5-meter Telescope, Visitor Center 0.5-meter Telescope
- Instrument
- Other CCD, Other CCD, Other CCD, Other CCD
- Color Assignment
- Luminosity, Blue, Green, Red
- Band
- Optical, Optical, Optical, Optical
- Bandpass
- Broad Band, B, G, R
- Central Wavelength
- 555, 438, 475, 625
- Start Time
- Integration Time
- Dataset ID
- None, None, None, None
- Notes
- Coordinate Frame
- ICRS
- Equinox
- J2000
- Reference Value
- 202.537613558, 47.3236319568
- Reference Dimension
- 1512.0, 1008.0
- Reference Pixel
- 1438.24420166, 750.739984512
- Scale
- -0.000177720404407, 0.000177907226515
- Rotation
- -82.782321347658
- Coordinate System Projection:
- TAN
- Quality
- Full
- FITS Header
- Notes
- Creator (Curator)
- NSF's NOIRLab
- URL
- https://noirlab.edu
- Name
- Telephone
- Address
- 950 North Cherry Ave.
- City
- Tucson
- State/Province
- AZ
- Postal Code
- 85719
- Country
- USA
- Rights
- Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
- Publisher
- NSF's NOIRLab
- Publisher ID
- noirlab
- Resource ID
- noao-m51haase
- Resource URL
- http://noirlab.edu/public/media/archives/images/original/noao-m51haase.tif
- Related Resources
- Metadata Date
- 2021-08-30T16:26:26+02:00
- Metadata Version
- 1.1
Detailed color mapping information coming soon...
