Eta Carinae Nebula Captured From Home at Blackmans Bay Tasmania on 8/5/22 (Dallas Stott)

Eta Carinae Nebula Captured From Home at Blackmans Bay Tasmania on 8/5/22

Chuffed with my best ever image of the mighty Eta Carinae Nebula and over 10,000 stars captured from home at Blackmans Bay Tasmania Australia on 8/5/22 before it disappeared over the roof. Although 7,500 light years away from us this bright nebula is visible to the unaided eye near the Southern Cross every night of the year.

Pentax K-5 on SkyWatcher Evostar 72ED, 420mm, f/5.8 refractor telescope with OVL field flattener and ZWO 60280 guide scope and ZWO ASI120MM Mini mono guide camera, mounted on a SkyWatcher Star Adventurer equatorial mount.

Accurately polar aligned to 14 arc-sec with Sharpcap Pro and guided on 9 stars with PHD2 using the ST-4 port. Stacked 26 lights and 38 darks each at iso 800 and 2 min exposure in Deep Sky Stacker which counted 10,222 stars at the 2% star detection threshhold. So I assume there are over 10,000 stars in the image. Stretched in Photoshop Elements and processed in NCH Photopad Pro. Total tracking time 56 mins.

Tasmania is blessed to have dark skies only a half hour from the capital city so the Astronomical Society and Dark Sky Tasmania will continue to advocate and preserve the dark skies here and create dark parks for future generations to enjoy. Love where I live.

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.

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