M51, The Whirlpool (Jared Willson)

Celestial hemisphere: Northern · Constellation: Canes Venatici (CVn) · Contains: IC 4263 · IC 4278 · M 51 · NGC 5169 · NGC 5173 · NGC 5194 · NGC 5195 · NGC 5198 · Whirlpool Galaxy

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M51, The Whirlpool

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M51, The Whirlpool

The Whirlpool Galaxy has a pretty cool history in terms of the story of its discovery and classification, and its contributions to our knowledge of galaxies in general. The galaxy was first cataloged by Charles Messier in 1773 and its companion, NGC 5195, was discovered a few years later by Pierre Méchain in 1781. At the time, it was not known that the two "nebulae" were interacting. Nobody knew whether their close position in the sky was coincidence, with one a distant background object and one foreground, or whether they were actually close together.

Then, in 1845, using the 72 inch "Leviathan of Parsontown", William Parsons became the first person ever to observe the spiral structure of a galaxy--it was M51, the Whirlpool. This was the first step in determining that so-called "spiral nebulae" are, in fact, separate island universes, not just diffuse nebulae within our own Milky Way. With the advent of radio astronomy, the interactions between the two galaxies were first discovered leading to a long history of this Arp interacting pair of galaxies providing information on how galaxy interactions affect structure and evolution.

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	Advanced success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	5818720
PixInsight job	44M7STO3EQ8YHYALP3PYIQG8SI9SHV6U
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	TASK_LOG

RA (center)	13h29m55s.790
RA (top/left)	13h27m10s.507
RA (top/right)	13h27m20s.570
RA (bottom/right)	13h32m35s.809
RA (bottom/left)	13h32m32s.928

Dec (center)	+47°11′17″.49
Dec (top/left)	+47°46′46″.35
Dec (top/right)	+46°34′36″.51
Dec (bottom/right)	+46°35′27″.20
Dec (bottom/left)	+47°47′37″.42

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M51, The Whirlpool

M51, The Whirlpool

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M51, The Whirlpool

M51, The Whirlpool

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