M43 and a portion of M42 (Randall Schleier)

Celestial hemisphere: Southern · Constellation: Orion (Ori) · Contains: Great Orion Nebula · M 42 · M 43 · Mairan's Nebula · NGC 1976 · NGC 1982 · Orion Nebula · The star θ1Ori · The star θ2Ori

M43 and a portion of M42, Randall Schleier

Powered byPixInsight

M43 and a portion of M42

Powered byPixInsight

M43 and a portion of M42

In between trying to use SGP and Skyguard this past week, I couldn't pass up the clear skies, low wind (really important at 2563 FL) and good seeing to capture M43. I tested SGP/Skyguard for a couple of hours each night before switching back to SKYX and Focuslock. It's always easier to use what you already know. I made good progress with SGP/Skyguard but I am not ready to switch yet.

This is an HDR composite of 10s, 150s and 300s exposures. I was surprised that I had to go down to 10s to keep the core from being overexposed. I ended up with over 600 10s exposures along with two other nights at 150s and 300s. I stacked about 80% of the best exposures. I masked off all but the core to get some detail in that area with HDR. Then I used HDR on the entire image to bring out the fainter nebulosity.

LRGB image.

Randall

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	5381765
PixInsight job	n/a
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	n/a

Image Index:

Contribution Index (beta):

M43 and a portion of M42

M43 and a portion of M42

Equipment

Acquisition details

Description

Comments

Sky plot

Histogram

		...
You have no new notifications.

Image Index:

Contribution Index (beta):

M43 and a portion of M42

M43 and a portion of M42

Equipment

Acquisition details

Description

Comments

Sky plot

Histogram

Notifications

AstroBin is in READ ONLY mode

Sorry :-(

Sorry :-(

Sorry :-(

Are you really sure?

Warning!

Warning!

Are you sure?

Report abuse

Slideshow settings

IOTD/TP stats (last [x] days)

Distribution of astrophotographers

Distribution of subject types

Distribution of data sources

Sorry

Sorry

Share

Upload new revision

Upload uncompressed source (XISF/FITS/PSD/TIFF)

Delete image and all its revisions?

Delete original image?

Delete all other versions?

Delete all revisions?

IOTD/TP stats

The following people like this image

The following people bookmarked this image

Warning

Flag malfunctioning thumbnails

Contains

Remove yourself as a collaborator

Plate-solving information