M74 - The Phantom Galaxy (AstroDarkSky)

Celestial hemisphere: Northern · Constellation: Pisces (Psc) · Contains: M 74 · NGC 628

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M74 - The Phantom Galaxy

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M74 - The Phantom Galaxy

Discovered in 1780 by John Herschel, this face on spiral galaxy hides faint wispy arms trailing the brilliant arms. The core is striking with its central cluster of stars circling a rare intermediate-sized black hole.

I experimented with several approaches towards this target and ended up with a result I'm happiest with by:

Creating a R G B image from a mono camera
A semi-moderate scope refractor was used (910mm) - drizzle appeared to hide details in the data. Even with a crop simulating a long focal length scope, there was plenty of pixel data to work with and gave enough detail foundation to grab onto the wavelet layers in order to sharpen strategically.
A synthetic luminance layer was created. When dark clear sky nights are rare, maximizing the acquisition time while minimizing refocusing on filter changes made the most use of my time. I used to use filter offsets, but some strange behavior was popping up randomly that would lose hours of poorly focused subs and I didn't want to take the chance.

Messier Objects
William Optics Fluorostar Series
ZWO ASI2600MM Pro

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	8571588
PixInsight job	YKKSSDMHH3R96KR8F27LQPNFWEVHA58Z
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	TASK_LOG

RA (center)	01h36m43s.698
RA (top/left)	01h35m26s.586
RA (top/right)	01h38m01s.462
RA (bottom/right)	01h38m00s.966
RA (bottom/left)	01h35m25s.795

Dec (center)	+15°47′17″.48
Dec (top/left)	+15°34′23″.52
Dec (top/right)	+15°34′35″.95
Dec (bottom/right)	+16°00′10″.29
Dec (bottom/left)	+15°59′57″.45

Image Index:

Contribution Index (beta):

M74 - The Phantom Galaxy

M74 - The Phantom Galaxy

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Image Index:

Contribution Index (beta):

M74 - The Phantom Galaxy

M74 - The Phantom Galaxy

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