The smaller galaxy, NGC 5195, is actually passing behind the Whirlpool. The gravitational influence of the two can be seen by the bridge of stars connecting them, but the force of NGC 5195 is also shaking up its larger neighbour, sending shockwaves through its spiral arms and compressing the gas and dust that’s present. This in turn is triggering star formation in hydrogen-rich regions, which are visible as red areas in my photo.

There are lots of galaxies in the background of the image. I’ve highlighted three here:

ECO 9882
I was intrigued by this because I’ve never come across a galaxy from the ECO catalogue before. Apparently it’s short for Environmental COntext, and is a database of galaxies that are part of a “census” recording stars, gas, and dark matter.

IC 4263
This is a barred spiral galaxy that we’re seeing edge-on. It’s about 140 million light-years away, meaning it’s more than five times further from Earth than the Whirlpool Galaxy.

IC 4277
This galaxy is a bit of an enigma. I couldn’t really find out much about it. Even its distance from Earth is a mystery. I quite like that I’m able to image a galaxy that no-one knows anything about!

The Whirlpool is a really spectacular galaxy, and I remember it featuring in a Hubble Space Telescope calendar I had on my wall as a kid. (Such a geeky child!) Just for fun, here’s my image on the left, and the Hubble image from that childhood calendar on the right. Hubble’s hugely sharper of course, and much higher resolution!