M51 Redux

M51 -- Whirlpool galaxy
Whirlpool and friends

Almost at the left edge is NGC5198, an eliptical galaxy about 170 million light years away; the extreme bottom left corner has  NGC5169.  160mly away. And the small needle along the left downward diagonal is IC4263  — 140mly away. There’s also a neat double star in the extreme lower right corner — HIP 65664 A & B.

The companion smudge of the Whirlpool has its own designation,  NGC5194. If you maximally pixel-peep the area just above and to the right of NGC5194, the galaxy IC4277 is a barely discernible elongated smear:

close crop showing IC4277
A close crop showing IC4277 dead center

M51 is about 23 million light years away. As best as I can find, IC4277 is about 10 times as far — say 230 million light years.

About 6 hours total exposure time over three nights with a 115mm telescope.  Processed with PixInsight and GIMP.

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