The Whirlpool Galaxy (M51) (schmaks)

Celestial hemisphere: Northern · Constellation: Canes Venatici (CVn) · Contains: IC 4263 · IC 4278 · M 51 · NGC 5169 · NGC 5173 · NGC 5194 · NGC 5195 · NGC 5198 · NGC 5229 · Whirlpool Galaxy

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The Whirlpool Galaxy (M51)

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The Whirlpool Galaxy (M51)

The graceful, winding arms of the majestic spiral Whirpool Galaxy appear like a grand spiral staircase sweeping through space. They are actually long lanes of stars and gas laced with dust.

The Whirlpool's most striking feature is its two curving arms, a hallmark of so-called grand-design spiral galaxies. Many spiral galaxies possess numerous, loosely shaped arms that make their spiral structure less pronounced. These arms serve an important purpose in spiral galaxies. They are star-formation factories, compressing hydrogen gas and creating clusters of new stars. In the Whirlpool, the assembly line begins with the dark clouds of gas on the inner edge, then moves to bright pink star-forming regions, and ends with the brilliant blue star clusters along the outer edge.

Due to its high northern declination near the handle of the Big Dipper asterism, the Whirlpool Galaxy is generally observable to northerners throughout much of the year. Although too faint to be seen with the unaided eye, a telescope or binoculars provide easy viewing from dark skies.

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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
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	Image of the day	Top pick	Top pick nominations	Total submitted
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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	3501304
PixInsight job	H08RWWEI9QBBB9X1JP5EVOXZEF7WDLXX
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	n/a

RA (center)	13h30m22s.20
RA (top/left)	13h25m44s.99
RA (top/right)	13h25m45s.96
RA (bottom/right)	13h34m46s.48
RA (bottom/left)	13h35m13s.97

Dec (center)	+47°10′07″.5
Dec (top/left)	+48°32′51″.2
Dec (top/right)	+45°48′00″.2
Dec (bottom/right)	+45°46′46″.8
Dec (bottom/left)	+48°31′33″.3

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The Whirlpool Galaxy (M51)

The Whirlpool Galaxy (M51)

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The Whirlpool Galaxy (M51)

The Whirlpool Galaxy (M51)

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