The Phantom Galaxy (George Simon)

Celestial hemisphere: Northern · Constellation: Pisces (Psc) · Contains: M 74 · NGC 628

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The Phantom Galaxy

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The Phantom Galaxy

M74, nicknamed the Phantom Galaxy, is so called because its low surface brightness makes it extremely difficult for amateurs to observe under average sky conditions. It has, in fact, the second lowest surface brightness among the Messier objects, exceeded in this regard only by M101. Located about 32 million light years away, M74 is slightly smaller than the Milky Way.

When I decided to shoot this target, I assumed that it would be fairly easy to process. My main interest in shooting it was to test out my newly acquired Explore Scientific HR Coma Corrector. As it turns out, it was something of a bear to process. The main challenge was posed by the precipitous drop in brightness between the galaxy's core and the outer regions of its spiral arms. It took a week's worth of on-and-off processing sessions to produce something that I deemed presentable.

For those who might be interested in my first impressions of the ES HR Coma Corrector, it looks to be a significant improvement over the first-generation Baader MPCC that I have been using for years now. I don't have the back-focus quite dialed in yet, but the improvement over the MPCC is already obvious.

Cloudy Nights

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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 success
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Astrometry.net job	8660918
PixInsight job	n/a
PixInsight queue size	n/a
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The Phantom Galaxy

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