M63 - Sunflower Galaxy with Star Streams (Craig Smith)

Celestial hemisphere: Northern · Constellation: Canes Venatici (CVn) · Contains: M 63 · NGC 5055 · Sunflower Galaxy

Powered byPixInsight

M63 - Sunflower Galaxy with Star Streams

Powered byPixInsight

M63 - Sunflower Galaxy with Star Streams

This data was acquired during my first post-pandemic western excursion back in May, 2021. This was my second visit to Rusty's RV ranch, and it didn't disappoint. Historically, I am not very prompt with my processing, and this time is no exception.

Images that show evidence of a galaxy's interaction with other galaxies are pretty cool and something that I enjoy trying to capture. Faint star streams can be challenging to try to capture and bring out, but there are some pretty clear indications in this image.

On this trip I switched over to a pier mounted NUC which replaced the pier mounted generic unit I had been using. The older unit worked fine, but would spontaneously restart occasionally... not ideal. The NUC has turned out to be quite reliable, so far.

I was not very scientific in my data capture, collecting L exposures of 300 and 600 seconds before deciding to collect some 1200 second frames to go deeper on the star streams.

Western trips are always a treat for me, and even better when my son, Josh is able to join up with me as he did for part of this trip. Coupled with meeting my Texas buddies for the first time in over a year, it made for a great time and this image is one of the nice results.

The technical card includes details about the capture and gear are fairly compete. As an aside, this is my first image processed 100% exclusively in PixInsight.

Please note: The following tables are updated every 24 hours.

Distribution of astrophotographers

This table shows the number of distinct astrophotographers who have been assigned and IOTD/TP award compared to the total number of images awarded.
	Distinct awarded users	Total awarded images
Image of the day
Top picks
Top pick nominations

Distribution of subject types

This table shows the distribution of awards per subject type, compared to the popularity of images of that subject type.
	Image of the day	Top pick	Top pick nominations	Total submitted
Deep sky
Solar system
Extremely wide field
Star trails
Northern lights
Noctilucent clouds
Landscape

Distribution of data sources

This table shows the distribution of awards per data source, compared to the popularity of images acquired from that data source.
	Image of the day	Top pick	Top pick nominations	Total submitted
Backyard
Traveller
Own remote observatory
Amateur hosting facility
Public amaeteur data
Professional, scientific grade data
Mix of multiple sources
Other
Unknown

The “AstroBin Image of the Day and Top Picks”, or IOTD/TP, is a long-running system to promote beautiful, interesting, peculiar, or otherwise amazing astrophotographs, with a focus on technical excellence. Learn more.

Submitted The date and time when you submitted this image for IOTD/TP consideration.	...
Views by Submitters (available since September 19th, 2023) Every image is assigned to 50% of available Submitters. In the event that at least 80% of them don't view the image before its time in the IOTD/TP process expires, it's assigned to the other 50% of Submitters and the process begins anew.
Promotions by Submitters When 3 distinct Submitters promote the image, it moves on to the next stage of the process: evaluation for Top Pick status. This requirement, in addition to anonymization of images and distribution to only a subset of them, prevents biases and ensures that the best images are selected.
Promotions by Reviewers When 3 distinct Reviewers promote the image, it moves on to the next stage of the process: evaluation for IOTD status.
Early dismissal Staff members have a lot of images to inspect on a daily basis, and they can dismiss images if they believe they don't meet the requirements for IOTD/TP selection. If an image is dismissed 5 times, it's removed from the process. This streamlines the process and ensures that any bias present in promotions could be overruled by other staff members.

Status	Advanced success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	5273713
PixInsight job	DFL2I9QCIZ9XPOG4PHF1YWHSIHDNW4AC
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	TASK_LOG

RA (center)	13h15m37s.100
RA (top/left)	13h17m26s.90
RA (top/right)	13h13m46s.99
RA (bottom/right)	13h13m49s.94
RA (bottom/left)	13h17m28s.15

Dec (center)	+42°02′43″.10
Dec (top/left)	+42°17′47″.5
Dec (top/right)	+42°17′15″.1
Dec (bottom/right)	+41°47′35″.0
Dec (bottom/left)	+41°48′06″.5

Image Index:

Contribution Index (beta):

M63 - Sunflower Galaxy with Star Streams

M63 - Sunflower Galaxy with Star Streams

Equipment

Acquisition details

Description

Comments

Sky plot

Histogram

		...
You have no new notifications.

Image Index:

Contribution Index (beta):

M63 - Sunflower Galaxy with Star Streams

M63 - Sunflower Galaxy with Star Streams

Equipment

Acquisition details

Description

Comments

Sky plot

Histogram

Notifications

AstroBin is in READ ONLY mode

Sorry :-(

Sorry :-(

Sorry :-(

Are you really sure?

Warning!

Warning!

Are you sure?

Report abuse

Slideshow settings

IOTD/TP stats (last [x] days)

Distribution of astrophotographers

Distribution of subject types

Distribution of data sources

Sorry

Sorry

Share

Upload new revision

Upload uncompressed source (XISF/FITS/PSD/TIFF)

Delete image and all its revisions?

Delete original image?

Delete all other versions?

Delete all revisions?

IOTD/TP stats

The following people like this image

The following people bookmarked this image

Warning

Flag malfunctioning thumbnails

Contains

Remove yourself as a collaborator

Plate-solving information