Messier 3 (Budley88)

Celestial hemisphere: Northern · Constellation: Canes Venatici (CVn) · Contains: M 3 · NGC 5263 · NGC 5272

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Messier 3

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Messier 3

Yes, diffraction spikes with a refractor. First attempt.

In the spirit of a Bahtinov mask, the first night of imaging included a diffraction mask (+) that was 3D printed and placed over the front of the scope. The mask also had a reduced opening to limit star bloat that is typical with this Z73 refractor. The second night was another reduced opening mask, but without the diffraction elements.

I've been at this hobby for over two years now and still learning. I did not know how much the alignment of the guide scope and the imaging scope mattered until I aligned the two before the second night of imaging. Significant improvement in the roundness of the stars. BlurExterminator does a pretty good job of fixing oval stars, but I'd rather they be round from the start than to try and fix them in processing. Thanks Dylan O'Donnell (Star Stuff) for the indirect tip in a recent video clip on Off Axis Guiders.

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	Basic success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	9466488
PixInsight job	n/a
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	n/a

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Messier 3

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