The Wild Duck Cluster M11 (Terry Hancock)

The Wild Duck Cluster M11

Also known as Messier 11, or NGC 6705 it is an open cluster in the constellation Scutum. One of the richest and most compact of the known open clusters, containing about 2900 stars. Its age has been estimated to about 220 million years and approximately 6000 light years distant.

This is my First Light Image using the QHY23

Out at The Wessling Observatory last night where I was hoping to use the QHY23 Mono CCD with my 12” Ritchey- Chrétien however a last minute glitch with the mount and I ended up bringing the camera home and mounting it on the Takahashi E-180/Paramount. When I started capturing the image I didnt realise I had forgotten to turn on TEC cooling until the 9th sub exposure....well I thought the first few will be no good. Much to my surprise when I processed the image I could not see any difference between the images captured at 6C and -20C so I used them

I am very impressed with this camera so far, I used no master flat or dark, only master bias. The camera's Sony ICX814 chip is extremely sensitive and very low noise.

Total Exposure 64 minutes.

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 failed
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	324074
PixInsight job	n/a
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	n/a

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