Bode's Galaxy M81 (Dave Rust)

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

Powered byPixInsight

Bode's Galaxy M81

Acquisition type: Electronically-Assisted Astronomy (EAA, e.g. based on a live video feed)

Powered byPixInsight

Bode's Galaxy M81

Acquisition type: Electronically-Assisted Astronomy (EAA, e.g. based on a live video feed)

It was supposed to be overcast tonight, but we lucked out!

Meet one of the most striking galaxies in the sky, Galaxy NGC3031. Located in the constellation Ursa Major (Big Dipper), it's about 12 million light years away...yet, it still shows quite a lot of detail at that distance.

The nucleus is huge and has a supermassive black hole at its center. Nonglowing dust and ash are strewn about. Scientists say something inside is shooting out fast busrts of radio energy.

This galaxy is big and bright. It was discovered in 1774, during the first golden age of telescopes. Johann Elert Bode gets the credit, so the galaxy is sometimes called Bode's Galaxy.

Bode is also is known for studying a new local planet at the time and came up with its name: Uranus.

It's OK, you can laugh.

Bode's Galaxy has lots of interstellar dust and ash in its two spirals. Add dense clouds of hydrogen and new stars erupt from the volatile mixture. These areas are marked by the reddish purple splotches throughout the spirals.

It turns out galaxies flow in groups like driftwood in a river. Bode's Galaxy is one of 34 galaxies moving through the universe together. Some of the galaxies are so close to it that they are pulling hydrogen away, which shows up in one case as orange filaments converging on another galaxy's nucleus (another image, another post).

Our own Milky Way galaxy has its group, too, and these two groups are relative neighbors. It's good to have friends to beat the loneliness of deep space!

I float along for the ride, as none of us really has a choice but to do so. The bumps are made easier with a glass of ice tea and the tunes of jazz great Oscar Peterson playing She Has Gone.

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	5834029
PixInsight job	MTD5PIX41A47MWKCKQ88QZ1PQ67KWXMT
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	TASK_LOG

RA (center)	09h55m33s.74
RA (top/left)	09h57m57s.61
RA (top/right)	09h57m57s.40
RA (bottom/right)	09h53m07s.49
RA (bottom/left)	09h53m13s.22

Dec (center)	+69°03′42″.3
Dec (top/left)	+68°50′55″.2
Dec (top/right)	+69°16′36″.6
Dec (bottom/right)	+69°16′21″.5
Dec (bottom/left)	+68°50′40″.8

Image Index:

Contribution Index (beta):

Bode's Galaxy M81

Bode's Galaxy M81

Equipment

Acquisition details

Description

Comments

Sky plot

Histogram

Image Index:

Contribution Index (beta):

Bode's Galaxy M81

Bode's Galaxy 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