from Hacker News

M51: A Feast for the Eyes

by ughitsaaron on 10/31/23, 11:08 PM with 32 comments

  • by bhouston on 11/1/23, 2:06 AM

    I love this one! The Webb telescope is so impressive.

    M51 is interesting because it is interacting/merging with another galaxy. Here is my attempt at capturing M51 this summer from my backyard using my amateur setup:

    https://www.astrobin.com/3qbwu2/

    And my setup if you are interested:

    https://www.astrobin.com/y1x1n2/

  • by tromp on 11/1/23, 8:12 AM

    This galaxy is more well-known as the Whirlpool Galaxy [1]. And a lot easier to google that way, avoiding confusion with the Samsung Galaxy M51 smartphone.

    Also nice to see Wikipedia state its mass in familiar terms:

    > Its mass is estimated to be 160 billion solar masses, or around 10.3% of the mass of Milky Way Galaxy.

    [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whirlpool_Galaxy

  • by dylan604 on 11/1/23, 12:48 AM

    The NIRCam image has a fuzzy feel to it, almost a soft focus feel. It looks like an issue with the image format not able to cope with the level of detail.

    The MIRI image almost looks like an entirely different subject and almost looks like a microscopic subject.

    Using their viewer with the slider to compare the two images aligned is just pure awesomeness. The tech we have now to make astronomy so approachable is simply amazing.

  • by fiforpg on 11/1/23, 1:00 AM

    Very pretty. Looks like one of Gustave Doré's illustrations for Paradise in the Divine Comedy:

    https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Dor%C3%A9,_Gustave_-...

  • by otteromkram on 11/1/23, 1:46 AM

    >This Webb observation of M51 is one of a series of observations collectively titled Feedback in Emerging extrAgalactic Star clusTers, or FEAST.

    These contrived acronyms are starting to push some uncomfortable boundaries.

  • by throw0101b on 11/1/23, 1:50 AM

    A reminder that NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day exists; each day's picture is at:

    * https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html

    * https://apod.com/feed.rss

    With the archive of past pictures:

    * Back to 2015 at https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/archivepix.html

    * Back to 1995: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/archivepixFull.html

  • by boringg on 11/1/23, 1:25 AM

    Awesome. I love the steady trickle of new space images and content from Webb. It lightens my day every time I get to read this stuff and reminders me there is soo much wonder left in the cosmos. Future generations will hopefully keep figuring it out!

  • by causi on 11/1/23, 9:01 AM

    from the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope

    One has to love how ESAWebb has to spell the operating agencies out every single time they mention Webb as if they're afraid of people forgetting the ESA paid for seven percent of it.

  • by neom on 11/1/23, 2:30 PM

  • by Fnoord on 11/1/23, 12:12 PM

    Stuff like this is material for a background image on desktop. I use Bing Wallpaper of the Day for that (you can download the picture with 3rd party clients). This way, I always get the same background on every computer, but it changes every day, so whether I like it or not it is very temporary. Meanwhile, when my kids see it, it sometimes inspires them. For example, my left screen has all kind of fingers on it from Sunday afternoon when my son saw a labyrinth (its OK, I will clean it).

    In AOSP / F-Droid there is Muzei which has a hook for astronomy pictures (NASA, specifically) [1]. Though it also has a Bing hook (it is modular). Smartphones have a different resolution so meh.

    [1] https://github.com/kollerlukas/NasaMuzei

  • by junon on 11/1/23, 12:59 AM

    Webb has surprised me more than I hoped it would. Incredible.

  • by mikeInAlaska on 11/1/23, 1:00 AM

    You gotta be kidding me. Are those the stars of M51 individually resolved all over the image?

  • by dsign on 11/1/23, 9:05 AM

    So much space and so much matter! And here down we are killing each other for a few grains of sand.

  • by amelius on 11/1/23, 8:20 AM

    Now I wonder what a time lapse video of it would look like

  • by tempodox on 11/1/23, 5:32 AM

    Beautiful. And the full size image is 8108 × 2746 pixels.

  • by layer8 on 11/1/23, 1:03 PM

    Wikipedia says 32 Mly, maybe needs an update?