M81 (Marco Cosmacini)

Celestial hemisphere: Northern · Constellation: Ursa Major (UMa) · Contains: Bode's Galaxy · M 81 · NGC 3031

Powered byPixInsight

M81

Powered byPixInsight

M81

M81 in Ursa Major is a spiral galaxy 12 million light years away. At the telescope, unlike other galaxies, it has a very bright core while the spiral arms are soft and low in contrast.
In this my new photograph, obtained this time with the AstroPhysics 180, I wanted to keep its natural aspect without exceeding with improbable contrasts as often happens on this subject. The beauty of this galaxy stays in this in my opinion.
Particular attention was given to color calibration, obtained with the photometric method with therefore natural colors also highlighted by the correctly brown dust bands. The HII regions have been slightly emphasized thanks to dedicated exposures in H-alpha at 3nm, whose red-pink color is given by the emission of hydrogen mainly in red with a 20% in blue.
The brightness of the core, which in M81 is much brighter than the arms, was maintained, but at the same time I was able to bring out the tenuous bands of dust from the bursting brightness.
The stars of our Milky Way, which overlapped the galaxy, were reduced and de-emphasized to give all the attention to M81 while I left the other stars in the field (always inside our Milky Way) with the normal brightness to give a more three-dimensional effect.
On the left of M81 is PGC28757, an irregular dwarf galaxy with newly formed stars ("only" 200 million years old) which therefore appear blue.

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	5426505
PixInsight job	TBKSN3QXGE7Z450H4JIBK51A9RL1ZEJ2
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	TASK_LOG

RA (center)	09h55m39s.27
RA (top/left)	09h58m18s.48
RA (top/right)	09h52m55s.37
RA (bottom/right)	09h53m03s.64
RA (bottom/left)	09h58m19s.65

Dec (center)	+69°03′48″.8
Dec (top/left)	+69°18′13″.5
Dec (top/right)	+69°17′47″.8
Dec (bottom/right)	+68°49′15″.8
Dec (bottom/left)	+68°49′41″.1

Image Index:

Contribution Index (beta):

M81

M81

Equipment

Acquisition details

Description

Comments

Sky plot

Histogram

Image Index:

Contribution Index (beta):

M81

M81

Equipment

Acquisition details

Description

Comments

Sky plot

Histogram

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