Westerhout 5 - The Soul of Cassiopeia (Jeff McClure)

Celestial hemisphere: Northern · Constellation: Cassiopeia (Cas) · Contains: HD16778 · HD17086 · HD17356 · HD17505 · HD17520 · HD17688 · HD17911 · HD17971 · HD18152 · HD18294 · HD18326 · HD18352 · HD18766 · HD18767 · HD237016 · HD237023 · HD237036 · IC 1848 · IC 1871 · LBN 667 · LBN 669 · LBN 670 · LBN 672 · LBN 673 · LBN 675 · LDN · LDN 1375 · LDN 1376 · Sh2-198 · Sh2-199 · And 1 more.

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Westerhout 5 - The Soul of Cassiopeia

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Westerhout 5 - The Soul of Cassiopeia

Here we have Westerhout 5, containing the star-cluster IC1848, also known as The Soul of Cassiopeia. It is about 6,500 light-years from dear, old Earth, in (logically) the constellation Cassiopeia. If you unfocus just a bit, you can see what appears to be the outline of an in-utero baby, with its face up and back down, thus the name. It is just below the “Heart of Cassiopeia from the Heart, providing further reason for the name.

As is common with these fluorescing nebulae, the visible glow results from the intense UV radiation emitted from newly born stars that recently emerged from the molecular clouds, as the solar wind of the young stars pushes against the surrounding molecular nebulae (clouds), compressing them and creating the conditions for the birth of yet another generation of stars. As also is the norm, the black areas around the fluorescing nebula are not deep space but rather dark, thick clouds (dark nebulae) between us and the core of our Milky Way galaxy.

This was the second image I captured at the Eldorado Star Party in October of this year (2023). It is in visual, red, green, and blue, with ten 300-second exposures through luminous, hydrogen-alpha, red, green, and blue filters, for a total integration time of 8 hours and 20 minutes, using a ZWO ASI2600MM-Pro camera, ZWO filter wheel and filters, ZWO off-axis guider with an ASI120 mini guide camera, and an ASCAR 107PHQ scope with a 0.7 reducer creating a focal Length of about 520mm, mounted on a ZWO AM5 harmonic equatorial mount. I processed the data using Astro Pixel Processor v. 2.0.0 beta 13 and Adobe Lightroom Classic.

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Distribution of astrophotographers

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	Distinct awarded users	Total awarded images
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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
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Star trails
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Landscape

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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
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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	8730373
PixInsight job	CQMHPC8DSS4UHOJ5HNAPLQ1BMX2XZ8IX
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	TASK_LOG

RA (center)	02h53m38s.16
RA (top/left)	03h03m35s.68
RA (top/right)	02h42m15s.10
RA (bottom/right)	02h44m13s.60
RA (bottom/left)	03h04m33s.42

Dec (center)	+60°24′54″.7
Dec (top/left)	+61°20′24″.3
Dec (top/right)	+61°02′27″.4
Dec (bottom/right)	+59°26′47″.2
Dec (bottom/left)	+59°44′01″.7

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Westerhout 5 - The Soul of Cassiopeia

Westerhout 5 - The Soul of Cassiopeia

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Westerhout 5 - The Soul of Cassiopeia

Westerhout 5 - The Soul of Cassiopeia

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