M101: The Pinwheel Galaxy (Lilith Gaither)

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 · PGC 2468609 · PGC 2469762 · PGC 49919 · Pinwheel galaxy

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M101: The Pinwheel Galaxy

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M101: The Pinwheel Galaxy

A face-on grand-design spiral galaxy 21 million light years away in Ursa Major. This galaxy measures 170,000 light years across.

The asymmetric grand-design spiral structure that puts the core of the galaxy off-center is caused by interactions with companion galaxies not in frame.

Aside from angular immensity in the sky and beautiful large-scale spiral structure, the galaxy is known for prominent HII regions. A 1990 survey cataloged more than 1,200. Several of these were prominent enough to receive their own NGC designations. These show clearly as bright nebulous regions within the galaxy.

To the left of the image, lenticular galaxy PGC 49919 just barely makes it into the image.

This data set was certainly a challenge to work with. To ensure the galaxy wasn't destroyed by stacking artifacts, I had to stick to an extremely small dithering profile which introduced a diagonal grid of patterned noise. Getting the stars to look right was also difficult with this one, and while many look okay, the vast majority simply aren't there (One star is literally a magenta ring with a monochrome hole in the middle). But, despite difficulty and tearing through several revisions, I present my image of Messier 101.

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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	3368385
PixInsight job	XSYH75M3RWDUZ2I9IXU75WG53LZVFVHE
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	n/a

RA (center)	14h03m11s.974
RA (top/left)	14h01m16s.624
RA (top/right)	14h05m09s.165
RA (bottom/right)	14h05m08s.489
RA (bottom/left)	14h01m13s.731

Dec (center)	+54°23′31″.31
Dec (top/left)	+54°12′08″.60
Dec (top/right)	+54°12′33″.35
Dec (bottom/right)	+54°34′46″.82
Dec (bottom/left)	+54°34′23″.22

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M101: The Pinwheel Galaxy

M101: The Pinwheel Galaxy

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M101: The Pinwheel Galaxy

M101: The Pinwheel Galaxy

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