M101 (Tom Harrison)

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

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M101

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M101

M101, also known as the Pinwheel Galaxy, is located in the direction of the Ursa Major Constellation at an approximate distance of 25 Million Light-Years. It shows large, colorful and magnificent on an astrophotographic image due to face-on orientation and its very large diameter of around 170,000 light-years, almost twice the size of our own galaxy, the Milky Way. M101 exhibits very large and extremely bright HII regions, producing massive star forming regions of blue stars from the copious amount of available molecular hydrogen and dust. The disrupted left side of the galaxy is thought to have been caused by an encounter with another galaxy in the distant past causing gravitational tidal forces which amplified the density waves in the spiral arms, compressing the gas and dust, and triggering massive star formation. M101's immense gravitational influence seems to be distorting its nearby neighbors.

Object: M101 (Pinwheel Galaxy)

Distance: 25 Million Light-Years

Magnitude: 7.9

Date: June 2009

Place: Fort Davis, TX

Exposure Details: LRGB:550:140:130:150 minutes unbinned

Processing: MaxIm DL, CCDStack, RegiStar, Photoshop CS3

Optics: 12.5" RCOS Truss

Focal Length: 2802mm @ f9

Mount: Paramount ME

Camera: STL6303E

Focuser: RCOS

Guiding: Off-axis with SBIG Guide Camera

Filters: Tru-Balance GenII LRGB 2"

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	3292390
PixInsight job	n/a
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	n/a

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Image Index:

Contribution Index (beta):

M101

M101

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Description

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