The North America Nebula (Michael Watson)

The North America Nebula

Link: http://www.flickr.com/photos/97587627@N06/10268065726/in/set-72157639839563614

This is a new photograph (see my previous one at www.flickr.com/photos/97587627@N06/10035943614/) of this showpiece of the summer Milky Way in the constellation Cygnus. The colour of this image is different in part because I used a daylight colour temperature setting (5,500 degrees K.) on the camera rather than the 4,000 degrees K. setting that I used for the September 29 photo.

The bluish first-magnitude star Deneb is at the right edge, just below centre. The orange-hued 3.7-magnitude star Xi Cygni is near the left edge. Stars to at least 15th magnitude are captured in this view. Perhaps surprisingly, the distance to, and therefore the size of, this glowing cloud of ionized gas are not known. If Deneb is the star whose emissions cause the gas to glow, then the gas cloud lies about 1,800 light years from our solar system, and has a diameter of about 100 light years. But who knows?

[Nikkor 80-400 mm lens; ISO 1600, 300 mm focal length, f/8; three 20-min. exposures - total 1 hour exposure time]

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

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