M51 core from heavily processed ESA/NASA image

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Photographer:

Dr Alan Potts

Location of Photo:

Original image by ESA/Hubble , S. Beckwith (STScI), and The Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)

Date/Time of photo:

25 April 2005, 06:00 (release date)

Equipment:

HST image processed

Description:

Credit: Original image by ESA/Hubble , S. Beckwith (STScI), and The Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA); image cropping, high pass blending and further processing: Alan Potts. I was wondering what was visible at the nucleus of M51 and NGC 5195 from a 205MB HST tiff image. This dramatic crop to the nucleus of M51 is the result. It shows the cross of dust in the vicinity of the central black hole. The processing included a high pass overlay blend in Photoshop CS2 and concentrating attention on light levels appropriate to the nucleus. A similar dramatic result was also seen for NGC 5195.