Whirlpool Galaxy (M51 · NGC 5194) — SABb in Canes Venatici
The Whirlpool Galaxy (M51, NGC 5194) as a framed fine art print. SABb in Canes Venatici, 13.7 arcminutes across, its light 22 million years old. Measured by…
About Whirlpool Galaxy (M51 · NGC 5194)
The Whirlpool Galaxy was the first galaxy in which spiral structure was ever seen: Lord Rosse sketched its arms in 1845 through the largest telescope of the time. It is one of the most recognisable objects in the sky, a face-on spiral whose arm reaches out to a smaller companion, NGC 5195. The encounter between the two is what keeps the Whirlpool's arms so sharply drawn, and Hubble's portrait of the pair is one of its most reproduced images.
What you are looking at
The Whirlpool Galaxy is a spiral with a sizeable central bulge and well-defined arms, close in type to the Milky Way. A weak bar of stars crosses its centre. It is tilted about 33° to our line of sight, enough to show both the shape of its arms and the depth of its disc. From edge to edge its visible disc spans about 88,000 light-years (taking its redshift distance, which for a galaxy this near is approximate), close to the width of the Milky Way.
What astronomers have recorded
SIMBAD, the reference database astronomers use, classes it as a Seyfert galaxy: its nucleus is lit by gas falling into its central black hole, though dust hides part of that glow from us. Halton Arp included it in his 1966 Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies as Arp 85, a list of galaxies with unusual, disturbed shapes. Boris Vorontsov-Velyaminov listed it as VV 1 and 403 in his catalogue of interacting galaxies. Three supernovae have been recorded in it, the first in 1994; the most recent include SN 1994I, SN 2005cs, SN 2011dh. It is cited in 4,621 scientific papers indexed by SIMBAD, and recorded there under 61 different catalogue designations.
When this light set out
Its light has been travelling for about 22 million years. When it left, grasslands were spreading across the continents. The galaxy is moving away from us at about 461 km/s (1.0 million mph), carried by the expansion of the universe. For a galaxy this close, its own motion through space is a large share of that speed, so the distance worked out from it is approximate; distances measured from individual stars in it can differ.
Finding it in the sky
The Whirlpool Galaxy lies in Canes Venatici. It is best placed on spring evenings: around 9:30 pm in May it stands about 83° high in the north, close to overhead, seen from the middle of the United States.
Its neighbours
At almost the same distance from us, and so its neighbours in space as well as on the sky: NGC 5195 (4′ away on the sky, at least 30,000 light-years from it); NGC 5229 (1.0° away on the sky, at least 390,000 light-years from it); UGC 8331 (2.5° away on the sky, at least 950,000 light-years from it).
By apparent size it is number 5 of the 12,657 galaxies on the Galaxy Origins register.
Measurements
| Catalogue | PGC 47404 |
|---|---|
| Morphological type | SABb |
| Angular diameter | 13.71′ |
| Right ascension | 13h29m52.7s |
| Declination | +47°11′42.5″ |
| Constellation | Canes Venatici |
| Inclination | 32.6° |
| Light travel time | 22 million years |
| Bar | yes, from the catalogue |
Check every figure above in the NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database
What is sold
A print of this galaxy and the record of the calculation, once. When it sells it leaves the register and is not offered again. We assign no names and no ownership — nobody can sell you those.
At 13.7 arcminutes this is a Exceptional galaxy, which is the tier where a real photograph shows clear structure and dust lanes. The tier comes from the measured diameter, not from a price list.
Take this galaxy — $1,290 Browse the Collection