M20 Trifid and M21 (Jason Fields)

Celestial hemisphere: Southern · Constellation: Sagittarius (Sgr) · Contains: M 20 · M 21 · NGC 6514 · NGC 6531 · Trifid nebula

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M20 Trifid and M21

Back in the early 80s, Celestron often used what I thought were gorgeous images of the Trifid in their ads. I've been a visual observer since then and have just gotten into digital imaging finally. This is an image I've long wanted to make.

I've applied minimal processing: darks and flats, alignment, then a contrast stretch and a gentle boost to the L image first, then a straight LRBG combine, with some additional easy stretching. Love the colors of the stars and the nebulae.

If one looks very closely, you will see some artifacts of my all-too-quick image processing. Seeing was not so great so the stars look just a bit soft too.

I haven't imaged since the end of February, when I'd first received this well-worn CGE Pro mount, but in the mean time significant repairs to the mount occurred: a hyper-tune and then I performed some additional maintenance and adjustments, including re-tapping the main block as the RA worm block adjustment bolt holes had become stripped. Under a dark sky, tracking performance was quite good, ~3" rms peak-to-peak most of the time but still some rough spots. After drift aligning with PHD2, I was able to take 1-2 minute long subs without guiding, but guiding will remain the norm. Pretty happy with the mount finally!

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	Distinct awarded users	Total awarded images
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Top picks
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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
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Star trails
Northern lights
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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
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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.

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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.
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Promotions by Reviewers When 3 distinct Reviewers promote the image, it moves on to the next stage of the process: evaluation for IOTD status.
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Status	Basic success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	1107833
PixInsight job	EQUGJWYJG3OYCHOJP2510FQQ1UC0U4TK
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	n/a

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M20 Trifid and M21

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M20 Trifid and M21

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