M42: "First Light" for a New RASA 11 (Doug Lucas)

Celestial hemisphere: Southern · Constellation: Orion (Ori) · Contains: 41 the01 Ori · 43 the02 Ori · 44 iot Ori · De Mairan's nebula · Great Orion Nebula · Hatysa · LBN 974 · LDN 1640 · Lower Sword · M 42 · M 43 · Mairan's Nebula · NGC 1976 · NGC 1980 · NGC 1982 · Orion Nebula · Sh2-281 · The star θ1Ori · The star θ2Ori · The star ιOri

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M42: "First Light" for a New RASA 11

Acquisition type: Electronically-Assisted Astronomy (EAA, e.g. based on a live video feed)

Powered byPixInsight

M42: "First Light" for a New RASA 11

Acquisition type: Electronically-Assisted Astronomy (EAA, e.g. based on a live video feed)

Last night was my first night out with a new RASA 11. I had in mind to spend most of the night calibrating the scope. (By that, I mean -- adjusting the camera interface to eliminate any bad back-focus issues and sensor tilt.) However, astro weather apps began calling for cloud banks to roll in and, sure enough, they were right. I finally realized, a) it wasn't a good night to tune a camera adaptor anyway, because I couldn't "trust" the sky to remain clear. and b) If I didn't get some observing in early, there wasn't even going to BE any observing at all. So, having achieved only some minimal successes with the camera adaptor, I jumped into a "first light" attempt to observe M42. I only had a handful of minutes. Clouds rolled in shortly after completing this average of stacked sub-frames.

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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	Advanced success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	5102425
PixInsight job	PUHVJQ543X08560SPE5XVGULEV1TC4UH
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	TASK_LOG

RA (center)	05h34m48s.67
RA (top/left)	05h32m29s.76
RA (top/right)	05h32m31s.78
RA (bottom/right)	05h37m07s.47
RA (bottom/left)	05h37m05s.49

Dec (center)	-05°36′26″.10
Dec (top/left)	-06°11′19″.2
Dec (top/right)	-05°01′03″.6
Dec (bottom/right)	-05°01′34″.3
Dec (bottom/left)	-06°11′52″.7

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M42: "First Light" for a New RASA 11

M42: "First Light" for a New RASA 11

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Image Index:

Contribution Index (beta):

M42: "First Light" for a New RASA 11

M42: "First Light" for a New RASA 11

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