The Orion Nebula, March 21st, 2023 (Bijan Hollinger)

The Orion Nebula, March 21st, 2023

This was actually my first image of a deep space object, before the Andromeda picture. It shows good detail on the nebula's sword and sail. It also has surprisingly decent clarity of M43 (Messier 43), which is another nebula in the Orion constellation. M43 is sometimes referred to as De Mairan's Nebula or NGC 1982. M43 is known to be the companion of the Orion Nebula. The Orion Nebula is estimated to be 30-40 light years in diameter, and roughly 1,300 light years away from Earth. It's fascinating to think that such an astronomically monumental deep space object can be at times so challenging to photograph. It's also incredible to think that the image I have taken is showing the Orion Nebula as it was 1,300 years ago. I was also lucky enough to capture another object. The object to the top right of the nebula is, I believe, the star Rigel, but I may have it confused with the star Saiph. I'm fairly certain that it's Rigel, as Rigel is brighter than Saiph, but once again I'm not certain. This was an incredible experience and I can already see my improvements when I compare this deep space image to my more recent picture of the Andromeda galaxy.

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.

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Astrometry.net job	n/a
PixInsight job	n/a
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