M51 - Whirlpool Galaxy (Sarah Savić Kallesøe)

M51 - Whirlpool Galaxy

Welcome to the Whirlpool Galaxy, home to more than 100 billion stars! Much like the Andromeda Galaxy and Milky Way, the Whirlpool Galaxy is a spiral galaxy. The distinct blue spiral arms of the galaxy are the sites of star formation. The diameter of the galaxy is roughly 60 thousand light-years. The Whirlpool Galaxy is a mere 30 million light-year trip away and is located in the constellation Canes Venatici of the Northern hemisphere sky. You can discover the beauty of it with just a pair of binoculars under dark sky conditions.

This is also a prime example of galactic cannibalism! Notice there are actually two galaxies in this image, the smaller circular structure below the larger spiral galaxy. The gravitational pull of the larger galaxy is pulling the smaller one towards it. Over time, they will eventually merge. A similar galactic collision is predicted to be in the fates of our home galaxy, the Milky Way, and our nearest neighbour, the Andromeda Galaxy. Not to worry, this will happen far after our lifetimes.

This image was captured on the night of May 6th, 2016 by Sarah Savić Kallesøe and Matthew Cimone at the Simon Fraser University Trottier Observatory in Burnaby, Canada. The total exposure of the image is about 3 hours with 120 seconds per frame. The red, green, and blue frames were captured with 4X4 binning and the luminance frames with 2X2 binning.
A special thank you is extended to Dr. Howard Trottier for generously sharing his wealth of astrophotography knowledge and for processing the image.

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.

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

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