The Whirlpool Galaxy is a stunning face-on spiral galaxy located in the constellation Canes Venatici. It is located about 31 million light-years from earth and can be relatively easily found as it is very near the end of the handle of the big dipper.

This image was made with a Nikon Z7 and a Nikon 500mm f/5.6 PF lens at f/5.6. A total of 48 30 second exposures at ISO 1600 were made for a total of 24 minutes of exposure time. Star tracking was with an Astrotrac TT320x. Image stacking was done with Deep Sky Stacker using the Kappa-Sigma clipped stacking method. Final image processing was done in Capture One.