A Snapshot of Virgo A, Messier 87 (Steven Hanaway)

Celestial hemisphere: Northern · Constellation: Virgo (Vir) · Contains: IC 3457 · IC 3459 · IC 3475 · M 87 · NGC 4476 · NGC 4478 · NGC 4486

A Snapshot of Virgo A, Messier 87, Steven Hanaway

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A Snapshot of Virgo A, Messier 87

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A Snapshot of Virgo A, Messier 87

Good morning everyone! Today's image is Messier 87, also known as Virgo A. Messier 87 is a supergiant elliptical galaxy that can be found in the constellation Virgo about 53 million light years away. This galaxy is one of the most massive galaxies in the local group, and contains thousands of globular clusters, compared to the hundreds in our milky way galaxy. This galaxy has an active galactic nucleus, and an active super massive black hole. The galaxy is bright visually, and in many other wavelengths of light including gamma rays. It is a popular target for both amateur and professional astronomers. The supermassive black hole at it's center is roughly 7 billion times as massive as our sun, and is one of two targets imaged last year by the event horizon telescope; a global network of radio telescopes that work together to make one telescope about the size of the Earth. With this much resolving power, the radio telescope array is capable of imaging the black hole's event horizon. Hopefully later this year, we will have the first ever direct image of a black hole and its event horizon. Clear Skies!

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	Basic success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	1935948
PixInsight job	n/a
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	n/a

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A Snapshot of Virgo A, Messier 87

A Snapshot of Virgo A, Messier 87

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A Snapshot of Virgo A, Messier 87

A Snapshot of Virgo A, Messier 87

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