New Astronomy Photo! - Messier 51, The Whirlpool Galaxy

Good morning, y'all! I had a real busy day yesterday, and I ended it by taking this! This is the first new astronomy photo I've taken since February of 2022. This is Messier 51, The Whirlpool Galaxy.

M51 sits around 31 million lightyears away and is about 76,900 lightyears in diameter. The smaller mass that's sitting to the right of M51 at the tail-end of one of its spiral arms is NGC5195. These two were first discovered by Charles Messier in 1773.

This was my first time using this equipment, so I only got about 40 minutes of data, and only 37.5 minutes were used for this image. Hopefully I can give this one another shot later down the line with some stronger equipment. My next target is going to be Messier 31, Andromeda galaxy. M31 is about 1/12 the distance away and also about twice the size, so I should be capable of a really really clear picture using the same equipment.

I had a lot of fun with this one! It's almost 9 in the morning now, so I think it's time for me to head to bed. Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed!