M46 & NGC2438 Under a Full Moon (Chris Gifford)

Celestial hemisphere: Southern · Constellation: Puppis (Pup) · Contains: HD61819 · HD61936 · HD61954 · HD62000 · HD62099 · HD62129 · HD62329 · HD62350 · HD62409 · M 46 · NGC 2437 · NGC 2438 · PK231+04.2

Powered byPixInsight

M46 & NGC2438 Under a Full Moon

Powered byPixInsight

M46 & NGC2438 Under a Full Moon

Messier 46 or M46, also known as NGC 2437, is an open cluster of stars in the slightly southern constellation of Puppis. It was discovered by Charles Messier in 1771. Dreyer described it as "very bright, very rich, very large." It is about 5,000 light-years away. There are an estimated 500 stars in the cluster with a combined mass of 453 M☉, and it is thought to be a mid-range estimate of 251.2 million years old.

The cluster has a very broadest (tidal) radius of 37.8 ± 4.6 ly (11.6 ± 1.4 pc) and core radius of 8.5 ± 1.3 ly (2.6 ± 0.4 pc). It has a greater spatial extent in infrared than in visible light, suggesting it is undergoing some mass segregation with the fainter (redder) stars migrating to a coma (tail) region. The fainter stars that extend out to the south and west may form a tidal tail due to a past interaction.

The planetary nebula NGC 2438 appears to lie within the cluster near its northern edge (the faint almost rainbow array of colored smudge at the top-center of the image), but it is most likely unrelated since it does not share the cluster's radial velocity. This makes for superimposed objects of interest, another instance perhaps being NGC 2818. On the other hand, the illuminating star of the bipolar Calabash Nebula shares the radial velocity and proper motion of Messier 46, and is at the same distance, so is a bona fide member of the open cluster.

M46 is located close by to another open cluster, Messier 47.[10] M46 is about a degree east of M47 in the sky, so the two fit well in a binocular or wide-angle telescope field.

All
Open Clusters

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	Advanced success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	6890081
PixInsight job	OH7PY3UK5T8JDGG878CZGLZXYY5H3AGS
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	TASK_LOG

RA (center)	07h41m46s.605
RA (top/left)	07h43m18s.959
RA (top/right)	07h40m06s.469
RA (bottom/right)	07h40m14s.960
RA (bottom/left)	07h43m26s.978

Dec (center)	-14°48′52″.12
Dec (top/left)	-14°31′54″.89
Dec (top/right)	-14°34′45″.61
Dec (bottom/right)	-15°05′46″.30
Dec (bottom/left)	-15°02′55″.97

Image Index:

Contribution Index (beta):

M46 & NGC2438 Under a Full Moon

M46 & NGC2438 Under a Full Moon

Equipment

Acquisition details

Description

Comments

Sky plot

Histogram

In these collections

		...
You have no new notifications.

Image Index:

Contribution Index (beta):

M46 & NGC2438 Under a Full Moon

M46 & NGC2438 Under a Full Moon

Equipment

Acquisition details

Description

Comments

Sky plot

Histogram

In these collections

Notifications

AstroBin is in READ ONLY mode

Sorry :-(

Sorry :-(

Sorry :-(

Are you really sure?

Warning!

Warning!

Are you sure?

Report abuse

Slideshow settings

IOTD/TP stats (last [x] days)

Distribution of astrophotographers

Distribution of subject types

Distribution of data sources

Sorry

Sorry

Share

Upload new revision

Upload uncompressed source (XISF/FITS/PSD/TIFF)

Delete image and all its revisions?

Delete original image?

Delete all other versions?

Delete all revisions?

IOTD/TP stats

The following people like this image

The following people bookmarked this image

Warning

Flag malfunctioning thumbnails

Contains

Remove yourself as a collaborator

Plate-solving information