M51-Whirlpool Galaxy on 8/10/08

Tonight I spent almost an hour refining my alignment using the DSI camera and the drift alignment technique. In the end, I think I've pretty much figured it out and I wound up with the images only limited by periodic error which I'll (hopefully) work on correcting over then next couple weeks.

As a result of the successful alignment, I was able to take lots of 1 minute images with minimal star trailing. I decided to have a go at M51 - the Whirlpool Galaxy to see how well it was working. It was working very, very well. I was able to gather a bunch of images which were stacked to make the image above. Since the Moon was really washing out the sky, I thought the end result was really pretty good. I'm excited about finally figuring out drift alignment - I believe that'll wind up making a big difference to my future imaging.

M31 and M101 by Galex, February 21, 2008:
http://www.galex.caltech.edu/newsroom/glx2008-01f.html

M81 from Chandra; June 18, 2008:
http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2008/m81/

M81 group (in particular, Arp's Loop), from Hubble; January 8, 2008:
http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2008/02/

M81 group with radio clouds, from NRAO; January 10, 2008:
http://www.nrao.edu/pr/2008/m81clouds/

M82 in X-rays by XMM Newton:
http://xmm.esac.esa.int/external/xmm_science/gallery/public/level3.php?id=1004

M83 by Galex; April 16, 2008:
http://www.galex.caltech.edu/newsroom/glx2008-01r.html

M106 by Galex; April 28, 2008:
http://www.galex.caltech.edu/newsroom/glx2008-02f.html

Various THINGS galaxies, including M51, M63, M74, M81 and several M81 group dwarfs, by NRAO; January 10, 2008:
http://www.nrao.edu/pr/2008/things/

What brought me joy today is a little different from my past blogs. I received an email from my honorary uncle saying to check this out, and I did and now I'm posting about it. I love getting emails and ideas about what to write about or even just tips of something neat to look at. So thanks uncle Steve-O for the email!

A galaxy 20 million light-years away called M51, was photographed and found to have an immense ring of dust at the center of the flat spiral galaxy. So the horizantal darker line is just part of the galaxy and the vertical line is the dust ring that is fueling the black hole. Now, to me it looks like a cross. Researchers are calling it an "X" and have no idea why the dust ring is positioned that way so that it looks like this.

What do you think?

Here's the link to the press release:

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope Resolves a Dark "x" Across the Nucleus of M51

Nasa's big space observatories, Chandra (CXO), GALEX, Hubble (HST), and Spitzer (SST) have been used to obtain a new, gorgeous composite image in multiple parts of the spectrum: The X-ray, UV, optical, and infrared part, respectively.

Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/Wesleyan Univ./R.Kilgard et al; UV: NASA/JPL-Caltech; Optical: NASA/ESA/S. Beckwith & Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA); IR: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ Univ. of AZ/R. Kennicutt

Chandra Press Release:
http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2007/m51/

Spitzer Press Release:
http://sscws1.ipac.caltech.edu/Imagegallery/image.php?image_name=sig07-024

SEDS M51 page:
http://www.seds.org/messier/m/m051.html

Credit:

NASA/CXC/Wesleyan Univ./R.Kilgard et al; UV: NASA/JPL-Caltech; Optical: NASA/ESA/S. Beckwith & Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA); IR: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ Univ. of AZ/R. Kennicutt

Description:

M51, whose name comes from being the 51st entry in Charles Messier's catalog, is considered to be one of the classic examples of a spiral galaxy. At a distance of about 30 million light years from Earth, it is also one of the brightest spirals in the night sky. A composite image of M51, also known as the Whirlpool Galaxy, shows the majesty of its structure in a dramatic new way through several of NASA's orbiting observatories. X-ray data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory reveals point-like sources (purple) that are black holes and neutron stars in binary star systems. Chandra also detects a diffuse glow of hot gas that permeates the space between the stars. Optical data from the Hubble Space Telescope (green) and infrared emission from the Spitzer Space Telescope (red) both highlight long lanes in the spiral arms that consist of stars and gas laced with dust. A view of M51 with the GALEX telescope shows hot, young stars that produce lots of ultraviolet energy (blue).

The textbook spiral structure is thought be the result of an interaction M51 is experiencing with its close galactic neighbor, NGC 5195, which is seen just above. Some simulations suggest M51's sharp spiral shape was partially caused when NGC 5195 passed through its main disk about 500 million years ago. This gravitational tug of war may also have triggered an increased level of star formation in M51. The companion galaxy's pull would be inducing extra starbirth by compressing gas, jump-starting the process by which stars form.

Additional Images: 

• JPEG (350.2 kb)
• Tiff (9.1 MB)
• PS (4.2 MB)

M51-Whirlpool Galaxy on 9/28/07

This is a very long exposure of a very faint object. I've tried to image it before, but it's really dark with decent seeing tonight and so I figured now would be a good time to try. You can see, if you look at the pixelization that this image has been level tweaked extensively to bring out the detail in the galaxy. This brings my Messier Album count up to 24 out of 110.

S. Beckwith (STScI) Hubble Heritage Team, (STScI/AURA), ESA, NASA

Explanation:

Follow the handle of the Big Dipper away from the dipper's bowl, until you get to the handle's last bright star. Then, just slide your telescope a little south and west and you might find this stunning pair of interacting galaxies, the 51st entry in Charles Messier's famous catalog. Perhaps the original spiral nebula, the large galaxy with well defined spiral structure is also cataloged as NGC 5194. Its spiral arms and dust lanes clearly sweep in front of its companion galaxy (right), NGC 5195. The pair are about 31 million light-years distant and officially lie within the boundaries of the small constellation Canes Venatici. Though M51 looks faint and fuzzy in small, earthbound telescopes, this sharpest ever picture of M51 was made in January 2005 with the Advanced Camera for Surveys on board the Hubble Space Telescope.