M101 PinWheel Galaxy in the constellation of Ursa Major (Phil Swift)

Celestial hemisphere: Northern · Constellation: Ursa Major (UMa) · Contains: M 101 · NGC 5457 · NGC 5461 · NGC 5471 · NGC 5477

M101 PinWheel Galaxy in the constellation of Ursa Major, Phil Swift

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M101 PinWheel Galaxy in the constellation of Ursa Major

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M101 PinWheel Galaxy in the constellation of Ursa Major

Messier 101 is a face-on spiral galaxy 21 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Ursa Major.

It was discovered by Pierre Méchain in 1781 and was communicated that year to Charles Messier, who verified its position for inclusion in the Messier Catalogue as one of its final entries.

It is a large galaxy, with a diameter of 170,000 light-years. By comparison, the Milky Way has a diameter of 100,000 light-years.

It has around a trillion stars, twice the number in the Milky Way and It has a disk mass on the order of 100 billion solar masses, along with a small central bulge of about 3 billion solar masses.

M101's characteristics can be compared to those of M31, The Andromeda Galaxy.

This galaxy has a high population of HII regions, many of which are very large and bright. These regions usually accompany the enormous clouds of high density molecular hydrogen gas, contracting under their own gravitational force, to form new stars.

M101 is asymmetrical due to the tidal forces from interactions with its companion galaxies.

These gravitational interactions compress interstellar hydrogen gas, which then triggers strong star formation activity in M101's spiral arms.

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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
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Star trails
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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
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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	4486132
PixInsight job	n/a
PixInsight queue size	n/a
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M101 PinWheel Galaxy in the constellation of Ursa Major

M101 PinWheel Galaxy in the constellation of Ursa Major

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M101 PinWheel Galaxy in the constellation of Ursa Major

M101 PinWheel Galaxy in the constellation of Ursa Major

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