Lower's Nebula SH2-261 (Jeff McClure)

Celestial hemisphere: Northern · Constellation: Orion (Ori) · Contains: 1021 Flammario · 11.92 · 69 Ori · 69 f01 Ori · HD41593 · HD41602 · HD41997 · LBN 862 · LBN 863 · LBN 864 · LDN 1586 · LDN 1587 · Sh2-261 · The star f1 Ori

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Lower's Nebula SH2-261

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Lower's Nebula SH2-261

Lower’s Nebula, aka SH2-261, is a faint patch of fluorescing nebula in the Great Orion Molecular Cloud far out on the edge of our Milky Way galaxy, about 3,000 light-years from Earth, and is about 26 light-years across. Because of its faintness at magnitude 10, on a scale where the higher the number, the fainter the object, it is extremely hard to image under light-polluted skies. Fortunately, technology has moved on. I could image this beautiful object with narrow band filters on January 13 using the equipment I got at the beginning of this year despite the light pollution and a half moon. The red glow results from the intense UV light emitted by the newly born cluster of bright blue stars in the center of the nebula, exciting the hydrogen in the surrounding cloud from which they were born. In interstellar time, the young star cluster has only recently carved out a cavity in its birth cloud. Because gas remains in the cavity, the bright blue light of the stars is diffused very much like the light from our Sun defuses through our atmosphere during the day, making the sky appear blue. [color=var(--lighterGrey)]The data for this digital image was captured using a WO Star 71(mm) telescope with a 351mm focal length and a ZWO ASI2600MM-Pro camera with a ZWO EFW filter wheel and an ASIAIR-plus computer controlling the process. It comprises 20 120-second exposures each through hydrogen-alpha, sulfur II, and oxygen III ZWO 7nm filters for a total integration time of two hours, taken from my backyard in Salado, Texas.[/color]

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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
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	Image of the day	Top pick	Top pick nominations	Total submitted
Deep sky
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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.
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Promotions by Reviewers When 3 distinct Reviewers promote the image, it moves on to the next stage of the process: evaluation for IOTD status.
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Status	Advanced success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	7112000
PixInsight job	8UP4HSWBLYP23NADCB87649F98XH3VB7
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	TASK_LOG

RA (center)	06h08m59s.99
RA (top/left)	06h13m56s.30
RA (top/right)	06h04m21s.14
RA (bottom/right)	06h04m05s.71
RA (bottom/left)	06h13m37s.60

Dec (center)	+15°42′09″.4
Dec (top/left)	+16°24′16″.1
Dec (top/right)	+16°30′49″.3
Dec (bottom/right)	+14°59′23″.7
Dec (bottom/left)	+14°52′49″.8

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Lower's Nebula SH2-261

Lower's Nebula SH2-261

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Lower's Nebula SH2-261

Lower's Nebula SH2-261

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