Messier 51 Whirlpool Galaxy

The majestic spiral galaxy M51 appear like a grand spiral staircase sweeping through space. They are actually long lanes of stars and gas laced with dust. This sharpest-ever image of the Whirlpool Galaxy, taken in January 2005 with the Advanced Camera for Surveys aboard NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, illustrates a spiral galaxy's grand design, from its curving spiral arms, where young stars reside, to its yellowish central core, a home of older stars. The galaxy is nicknamed the Whirlpool because of its swirling structure.

The Whirlpool's most striking feature is its two curving arms, a hallmark of so-called grand-design spiral galaxies. Many spiral galaxies possess numerous, loosely shaped arms which make their spiral structure less pronounced. These arms serve an important purpose in spiral galaxies. They are star-formation factories, compressing hydrogen gas and creating clusters of new stars. In the Whirlpool, the assembly line begins with the dark clouds of gas on the inner edge, then moves to bright pink star-forming regions, and ends with the brilliant blue star clusters along the outer edge.

The Image was reprocessed from the raw (Fits data) by the astrophotographer and founder of Cosmonity Michał Ostaszewski. The image is large scale mosaics from 9 panels which gives the high resolution and many details of the galaxy. The colors of the image were reprocessed with the 3 main narrowband filters of 435nm for the blue channel, 555nm for green and 814nm for red with an additional fourth channel representing the red nebulosity in the galaxy arms related to the 658nm emission(h-alpha) line of the ionized hydrogen.

• Excellent print quality with the Canon imagePROGRAF Pro4100 12 color inkjet printer for maximum sharpness and color reproduction quality,
• High UV resistance and long color fastness,
• Professional Solution photo paper that guarantees high-contrast images and deep blacks and provides excellent tone transitions. You can choose between smooth satin paper weighing 240 g/m2 (Poster) and matte, microporous paper weighing 290 g/m2 (Fine Art),
• Canvas prints are printed on 360 g/m2 on cotton-synthetic canvas, to the delivery destinations to Europe we send to you a framed canvas on wooden frame - ready for exhibit on your wall. For orders beyond Europe, we ship canvas prints as a rolled canvas in a transport tube(need additional framing).
• Environmentally friendly product – we use water-based inks from LUCIA PRO,
• Delivery of the prints (Fine Art and Poster prints) in a reusable, safe cardboard tube as rolled paper sheets. At every stage of the development of our products, we strive to remain environmentally conscious, by using as little plastic as possible and minimizing the amount of waste generated.

Data Credits: NASA, ESA
Image Processing: Michał Ostaszewski

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Product visualizations are just an example of the arrangement of our prints in interiors. Printouts are delivered in the form of sheets rolled into a transport tube without a frame.