M 51 The Whirlpool Galaxy - Widefield (Tom the Astro Canuck)

Celestial hemisphere: Northern · Constellation: Canes Venatici (CVn) · Contains: M 51 · NGC 5194 · NGC 5195 · NGC 5229 · Whirlpool Galaxy

M 51 The Whirlpool Galaxy - Widefield, Tom the Astro Canuck

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M 51 The Whirlpool Galaxy - Widefield

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M 51 The Whirlpool Galaxy - Widefield

The what impressed me most about this image was the number of faint galaxies you can start to make out in this 21 hour widefield image of the Whirlpool Galaxy.

The very pronounced spiral structure of the Whirlpool Galaxy is believed to be the result of the close interaction between M 51 and its companion galaxy NGC 5195. Decades ago, it was not known with certainty whether NGC 5195 was a true companion, or another galaxy passing at a distance. The advent of radio astronomy, and subsequent radio images of M 51, unequivocally demonstrated that their interaction is real.

This long stretch of good weather has allowed me to image some new-to-me targets, and they have all been very rewarding in their own way. Two I've revisited, and two were brand new to my camera's sensor - M 51 being one of the newbies. As the nights grow shorter, I'll need to be more selective of my targets as long exposures will be impacted by the lack of time spent in astronomical dark (the time when the sun has zero effects on the night sky)

Thank you, and be safe.

I'm not here to change the world. I'm here to share the universe.

Mr Tom Harbin

AstroCanuck

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Distribution of astrophotographers

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	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
Northern lights
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	Image of the day	Top pick	Top pick nominations	Total submitted
Backyard
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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	3410418
PixInsight job	n/a
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	n/a

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M 51 The Whirlpool Galaxy - Widefield

M 51 The Whirlpool Galaxy - Widefield

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Image Index:

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M 51 The Whirlpool Galaxy - Widefield

M 51 The Whirlpool Galaxy - Widefield

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