M51 - The Whirlpool Galaxy (MountainAir)

Celestial hemisphere: Northern · Constellation: Canes Venatici (CVn) · Contains: IC 4277 · IC 4278 · M 51 · NGC 5194 · NGC 5195 · Whirlpool Galaxy

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M51 - The Whirlpool Galaxy

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M51 - The Whirlpool Galaxy

Description: The Whirlpool Galaxy, also known as M51 or NGC 5194, is a spiral galaxy located in the constellation Canes Venatici, about 23 million light-years away from Earth. It is one of the brightest and most picturesque galaxies in the night sky and is a popular target for amateur and professional astronomers. The galaxy's spiral arms, which are filled with young, hot stars, and dark dust lanes, are particularly striking. The galaxy is also notable for its close companion galaxy, NGC 5195, which is thought to have played a role in the formation of the Whirlpool's spiral structure. The Whirlpool Galaxy was first discovered by Charles Messier in 1773.

Narrative: This is a re-imagining of an earlier processing attempt. One of the challenges with this target is the haloing that occur around the very bright, very colorful stars in the galactic spiral arms. It took many iterations to figure out how to deal with these, and in the end it required a fair amount of fidgeting. The overall image is much nicer as well; apparently my processing skills have improved over the past 8 months. I may circle back to capture this target again; perhaps high-quality filters will have less-pronounced halos.

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	6948911
PixInsight job	L6Y57PU5TN90DU20H0T278BQGHT8C6WO
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	TASK_LOG

RA (center)	13h29m53s.742
RA (top/left)	13h30m51s.168
RA (top/right)	13h30m43s.217
RA (bottom/right)	13h28m55s.837
RA (bottom/left)	13h29m04s.682

Dec (center)	+47°11′59″.46
Dec (top/left)	+46°58′45″.50
Dec (top/right)	+47°26′08″.52
Dec (bottom/right)	+47°25′11″.61
Dec (bottom/left)	+46°57′48″.55

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M51 - The Whirlpool Galaxy

M51 - The Whirlpool Galaxy

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M51 - The Whirlpool Galaxy

M51 - The Whirlpool Galaxy

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