Clash of titans, The Whirpool Galaxy

Messier 51, The Whirpool Galaxy

Located in the constellation Canes Venatici, it is one of the most fascinating objects in the night sky.

The Whirpool galaxy 's' is a pair of colliding galaxies 31 million light years away from Earth.

It is a Grand design spiral galaxy similar to our own galaxy. It is approximately 90% the size of The milky way witha diameter of 76,000 light years.

Something interesting to note is that the pair of galaxies have most likely merged but since it is so far away from us, the light from the merging has not reached us yet, in fact the image that you see above is how the galaxy must have looked 31 million years ago.

Total 3.5 hours exposure time from bortle 4

Nikon Z50
Nikkor 50-250mm f4.5-6.3 kitlens
Iexos-100-2pmc tracking mount

Stacked is deepsky stacker processed in graxpert and siril