M45 - Pleiades (David McGarvey)

M45 - Pleiades

**Acquisition:**

53 x 60" lights (53 mins. total integration time)

50 flats from archive

Darks via in-camera LENR

**Processing:**

*Lightroom/ACR (Raw file development/lens corrections):*

imported raw .NEF files

lens profile corrections

highlights -100

adjusted tone curve for RGB channels to align black point

blacks -10

luminance noise reduction +20

remove chromatic aberration

magenta/blue/orange defringing

export as 16-bit TIFs

*DeepSkyStacker:*

import 16-bit TIFs

added 50 flats from archive

stacked with the kappa-sigma algorithm

no background color calibration

saved result as 32-bit floating point (rational) TIF with no DSS changes applied

*RawTherapee (For highlights reconstruction/recovery):*

opened 32-bit TIF from DSS

highlight reconstruction > color propagation

exposure compensation -0.7

highlight compression - 40

highlight compression threshold - 0

black - 0

lightness - 0

contrast - 0

saturation - 0

output as 32-bit floating point TIF

*RNC-Color-Stretch:*

opened 32-bit TIF

set power factor to 599/1/1

color enhancement factor 1.0

color correction off

output as 16-bit PNG file

*Photoshop:*

Convert PNG to TIF

GradientXTerminator

Slight crop to remove stacking artifacts

HLVG plugin to remove green cast

Annie's Astro Actions > Dynamic Enhance

Created starless layer > stretched with curves

Applied high pass filter and unsharp mask to starless layer and blended

Purple Fringe Killer plugin applied selectively using mask

Star Spikes Pro plugin; applied faint diffraction spikes to a few stars

various color balance, saturation, and contrast tweaks to taste

save as JPG

Original
B
C
Final
D

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	2384596
PixInsight job	n/a
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	n/a

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M45 - Pleiades

M45 - Pleiades

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M45 - Pleiades

M45 - Pleiades

Equipment

Acquisition details

Description

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