The graceful, winding arms of the majestic whirlpool galaxy 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 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 bright pink regions display large bursts of H-alpha, where new stars are formed.
I would highly recommend viewing this image on gigapan, where you can zoom in to the full resolution. http://www.gigapan.com/gigapans/227620
Image:
Details:
All data was taken by Hubble’s ACS from the following proposal: https://archive.stsci.edu/proposal_search.php?mission=hst&id=10452
Red: hlsp_heritage_hst_acs-wfc_m51_f658n_v1_drz, hlsp_heritage_hst_acs-wfc_m51_f814w_v1_drz
Green: hlsp_heritage_hst_acs-wfc_m51_f555w_v1_drz
Blue: hlsp_heritage_hst_acs-wfc_m51_f435w_v1_drz, hlsp_heritage_hst_acs-wfc_m51_f658n_v1_drzProcessing
- Combine broadband RGB
- Photometric calibration using APASS 7 data
- Subtracting broadband red from H-alpha
- Add subtracted H-alpha to red channel and a bit to blue channel
- ArcsinH stretch
- Histogram stretch
- ArcsinH stretch
- Color saturation adjustment
- Low-scale MMT sharpening
- Local Histogram Equalization
- Brightness adjustment using a luminance mask and curves