M101 - The Pinwheel Galaxy (Mark Hudson)

Celestial hemisphere: Northern · Constellation: Ursa Major (UMa) · Contains: M 101 · NGC 5447 · NGC 5449 · NGC 5450 · NGC 5451 · NGC 5453 · NGC 5455 · NGC 5457 · NGC 5461 · NGC 5462 · NGC 5471 · NGC 5473 · NGC 5474 · NGC 5477 · Pinwheel galaxy

Powered byPixInsight

M101 - The Pinwheel Galaxy

Powered byPixInsight

M101 - The Pinwheel Galaxy

This was my largest and most ambitious imaging project yet. Luckily during April I had a run of good nights for imaging and acquired a huge amount of data - this one image represents the sum of 15 hours of imaging time.

Taken through a 6” APO Refractor at f/5.9. The image is LRGB, however I have merged into it HA data at 6nm bright nebula’s in the galaxies spiral arms.

The Pinwheel Galaxy (also known as Messier 101) is a face-on spiral galaxy (grand design), which lies 21 million light-years away from Earth and can be seen in the constellation Ursa Major (The Great Bear). It has a diameter of 170,000 light years (Milky Way is 100,000) and contains approximately 1 trillion stars (twice that of the Milky Way)

It was first discovered in 1781 and Charles Messier added it to his catalog later that year.

I had great fun processing this image and having to learn to blend in the narrowband Hydrogen Alpha data, but I am pleased and consider this to be my best attempt at a galaxy image so far.

Moravian Users

Galaxies
Messier Catalog

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	4584744
PixInsight job	WY1LOV8M26TH1FLDWBNL5XRCZHJFS0WH
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	n/a

RA (center)	14h03m13s.283
RA (top/left)	13h57m12s.911
RA (top/right)	14h08m16s.307
RA (bottom/right)	14h09m23s.522
RA (bottom/left)	13h57m59s.870

Dec (center)	+54°20′31″.96
Dec (top/left)	+53°45′48″.91
Dec (top/right)	+53°35′38″.34
Dec (bottom/right)	+54°54′07″.16
Dec (bottom/left)	+55°04′34″.60

Image Index:

Contribution Index (beta):

M101 - The Pinwheel Galaxy

M101 - The Pinwheel Galaxy

Equipment

Acquisition details

Description

Comments

Sky plot

Histogram

In these public groups

In these collections

		...
You have no new notifications.

Image Index:

Contribution Index (beta):

M101 - The Pinwheel Galaxy

M101 - The Pinwheel Galaxy

Equipment

Acquisition details

Description

Comments

Sky plot

Histogram

In these public groups

In these collections

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