Monoceros R1 Nebular Complex containing NGC 2264 (Jeff McClure)

Monoceros R1 Nebular Complex containing NGC 2264

Capturing and creating this image was one of the most difficult and time-consuming projects I have done in my 14 years of astrophotography. It comprises 12.5 hours of exposures captured on December 9, 10, and 11, in H-alpha, S-II, and O-III, plus several hours of calibration images. It took me about 40 hours to convert this from the resulting gigabyte of data into the finished product you see here. To reveal the structure of the sculpted surface of the nebula, I have shrunk the stars between us and the Monoceros R1 Nebula Complex (Mon R1 DNC), a mass of interstellar molecular cloud with a diameter of about 531 light years, with its boundaries at the left and right edges of this image. It is only a small portion of the unimaginably large band of clouds that wrap around the central portion of our galaxy and serve to shield us from what would otherwise be the deadly gamma ray radiation emitted by Sagittarius A, the supermassive black hole at our galaxy’s center.The image is of a fluorescing, star-sculpted area of that nebula (cloud) identified generally as NGC 2264 at the center of the Mon R1 Complex and is about 3,000 to 5,500 light-years from us. The structure of the cloud has been carved out by the white supergiant binary star S Monocerotis (S Mon) and the associated Christmas Tree star cluster. S Mon has 35 times the mass of our sun, is 217,000 times brighter, and is expelling a significant part of its mass each year, creating one of the most powerful stellar winds in our galaxy.

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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 failed
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Astrometry.net job	8928532
PixInsight job	n/a
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