Messier 60, Arp 116 (Steven Hanaway)

Celestial hemisphere: Northern · Constellation: Virgo (Vir) · Contains: IC 3720 · IC 3727 · M 59 · M 60 · NGC 4621 · NGC 4637 · NGC 4638 · NGC 4647 · NGC 4649 · NGC 4660

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Messier 60, Arp 116

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Messier 60, Arp 116

Good morning everyone! Today's image is an elliptical galaxy known as Messier 60. Messier 60 can be found in the constellation Virgo about 55 million light years away from Earth. This galaxy seems to have just recently started interacting with what was previously thought to be only a visual companion galaxy, catalgoued as NGC 4647. The two galaxies actually overlap, though not much gravitational interaction and disturbance seems to have occurred between the two galaxies. The two galaxies together are also catalgued as a peculiar galaxy/ galaxy pair, ARP 116. Messier 60 has an active galactic nuclei, and contains a super massive black hole approximately 4.5 billion solar masses, making it one of the largest known super massive black holes. I hope you like today's image, be sure to check back tomorrow for a new one. Clear Skies!

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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	1940249
PixInsight job	n/a
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	n/a

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Messier 60, Arp 116

Messier 60, Arp 116

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Image Index:

Contribution Index (beta):

Messier 60, Arp 116

Messier 60, Arp 116

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