Image of the Whirlpool Galaxy M51 in the blue light, from Greg Bothun's collection at the University of Oregon, and the SEDS Deepspace Image FTP Archive. The vivid spiral structure of the inner part of this great galaxy is obvious.
M51 image from Bill Keel's collection at the University of Alabama. This is a three-color reconstruction from BVR CCD images taken with the 1.1-meter Hall telescope at Lowell Observatory. Evidently, the companion lies well behind the prominent connecting arm, whose dust can be seen obscuring the smaller companion's light. Much of the spiral structure in NGC 5194 (M51 or M51 A) can be traced to the tidal perturbations produced by the companion NGC 5195 (sometimes called M51 B).
F.L. Whipple Observatory image of M51. Click on the image to see it in full size.
Image of M51 from an anonymous source
Last Modification: 7 Jul 1999