The Whirlpool Galaxy, M51 (Bret Waddington)

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

The Whirlpool Galaxy, M51, Bret Waddington

Powered byPixInsight

The Whirlpool Galaxy, M51

Powered byPixInsight

The Whirlpool Galaxy, M51

The Whirlpool Galaxy, also known as Messier 51a, M51a, and NGC 5194, is an interacting grand-design spiral galaxy with a Seyfert 2 active galactic nucleus. It lies in the constellation Canes Venatici, and was the first galaxy to be classified as a spiral galaxy.

I started imaging this on 5-1-2021 and got a little over 1 hour before it clouded over. I processed the files and was happy with the results, better than expected for the short integration time. I knew it needed more though.

A few days later a new camera arrived. Of course I hooked it up right away, wanting to get a dark library made before putting it to use. My PC didn't recognize the camera. Had to update drivers. Easy peasy, darks started popping in while I slept.

On 5-7-2021 I took more subs with the same setup as 5-1. Seeing was much better, guiding awesome and the subs looked great. About another 3 hours worth. But after processing and integrating the output was horrible. I checked all settings for calibration and integration and all looked good. I checked individual files from each step and noticed that they degraded right after calibration. I checked the fits header - after updating the drivers it had changed my settings for the 533! Gain was at 300 and offset was 1. I made all new masters for the 533 at my normal settings but none for the subs taken of M51.

This image is a combination of 23 calibrated subs and 56 uncalibrated.

Cloudy Nights

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	Basic success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	4502093
PixInsight job	n/a
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	n/a

Image Index:

Contribution Index (beta):

The Whirlpool Galaxy, M51

The Whirlpool Galaxy, M51

Equipment

Acquisition details

Description

Comments

Sky plot

Histogram

In these public groups

Image Index:

Contribution Index (beta):

The Whirlpool Galaxy, M51

The Whirlpool Galaxy, M51

Equipment

Acquisition details

Description

Comments

Sky plot

Histogram

In these public groups

Notifications

AstroBin is in READ ONLY mode

Sorry :-(

Sorry :-(

Sorry :-(

Are you really sure?

Warning!

Warning!

Are you sure?

Report abuse

Slideshow settings

IOTD/TP stats (last [x] days)

Distribution of astrophotographers

Distribution of subject types

Distribution of data sources

Sorry

Sorry

Share

Upload new revision

Upload uncompressed source (XISF/FITS/PSD/TIFF)

Delete image and all its revisions?

Delete original image?

Delete all other versions?

Delete all revisions?

IOTD/TP stats

The following people like this image

The following people bookmarked this image

Warning

Flag malfunctioning thumbnails

Contains

Remove yourself as a collaborator

Plate-solving information