                        Astronomy Picture of the Day

    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.

                              2024 December 13

                    M51: Tidal Streams and H-alpha Cliffs
     Image Credit & Copyright: The Deep Sky Collective - Tim Schaeffer,
     Carl Björk, Steeve Body, Fabian Neyer, Aki Jain, Ryan Wierckx, Paul
                Kent, Brian Valente, Antoine & Dalia Grelin,
     Nicolas Puig, Stephen Guberski, Mike Hamende, Julian Shapiro, John
            Dziuba, Mikhail Vasilev, Bogdan Borz, Adrien Keijzer

   Explanation: An intriguing pair of interacting galaxies, M51 is the
   51st entry in Charles Messier's famous catalog. Perhaps the original
   spiral nebula, the large galaxy with whirlpool-like spiral structure
   seen nearly face-on is also cataloged as NGC 5194. Its spiral arms and
   dust lanes sweep in front of its smaller companion galaxy, NGC 5195.
   Some 31 million light-years distant, within the boundaries of the
   well-trained constellation Canes Venatici, M51 looks faint and fuzzy to
   the eye in direct telescopic views. But this remarkably deep image
   shows off stunning details of the galaxy pair's striking colors and
   fainter tidal streams. The image includes extensive narrowband data to
   highlight a vast reddish cloud of ionized hydrogen gas recently
   discovered in the M51 system and known to some as the H-alpha cliffs.
   Foreground dust clouds in the Milky Way and distant background galaxies
   are captured in the wide-field view. A continuing collaboration of
   astro-imagers using telescopes on planet Earth assembled over 3 weeks
   of exposure time to create this evolving portrait of M51.

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                       Tomorrow's picture: deep diving
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       Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
            NASA Official: Amber Straughn Specific rights apply.
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                           NASA Science Activation
                             & Michigan Tech. U.

