M51 (Jeff Marston)

Celestial hemisphere: Northern · Constellation: Canes Venatici (CVn) · Contains: IC 4277 · M 51 · NGC 5194 · NGC 5195 · Whirlpool Galaxy

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M51

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M51

I went out to my favorite dark site with my usual imaging buddy, James Pierce. Its the first time I have been able to get out in nearly 6 months, mostly because of the amazing amount of snowfall we have been getting in northern Utah. Since it’s galaxy season I decided to take my C11 and see what I could do with M51. I am always a little apprehensive when I try imaging with such a large scope. Every little issue becomes bigger just because of the weight of the scope and the very long focal length. Fortunately my guiding stayed between .6 and .7 through most of the night and I got 33 decent 4 minute exposures.

At least half the credit for this image should go to James Pierce. I couldn’t get either of my stacking apps to align the photos. The tiny movements from dithering seemed to make it difficult for APP and Affinity put the images together. James took my data and did a great job of stacking and post processing. When he sent me the image I was amazed at how great it looked. I spent about 10 minutes tweaking the image a little more, but It really didn’t need it.

Original
Final
B

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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	Basic success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	7562814
PixInsight job	n/a
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	n/a

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