The magnificent spiraling molecular cloud of Apus (darkdesertdome)

Celestial hemisphere: Southern · Constellation: Apus (Aps) · Contains: IC 4633 · IC 4635 · PGC 230199 · PGC 230240 · PGC 230291 · PGC 230444 · PGC 230686 · PGC 231151 · PGC 231228 · PGC 231250 · PGC 231413 · PGC 231424 · PGC 231660 · PGC 231708 · PGC 232127 · PGC 232148 · PGC 232169 · PGC 232200 · PGC 232307 · PGC 232437 · PGC 232541 · PGC 232631 · PGC 232669 · PGC 232714 · PGC 233186 · PGC 233199 · PGC 233345 · PGC 233350 · PGC 233377 · PGC 233466 · And 58 more.

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The magnificent spiraling molecular cloud of Apus

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The magnificent spiraling molecular cloud of Apus

Thanks to some work-related travel to Perth in Western Australia last month, I finally fulfilled my dream of seeing the sky's better hemisphere under Bortle 1 conditions! I feel extremely fortunate and wish everyone could have the same opportunity. It was not fun dragging an Esprit 100 and AM5 mount across the world on a long series of flights, but in the end, it was worth it. Here is my first unfiltered OSC image from that wonderful week under dark skies, with several more to come as I find time to process them. The molecular cloud of Apus has a wonderfully striking, fluid form, and is adorned with some lovely galaxies in the background. The image isn't perfect given some optical aberrations with the Apex reducer but the increased speed was worth the tradeoff given the limited time I had and the once-in-a-lifetime nature of the opportunity. I hope you enjoy this image as much as I do.

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	Distinct awarded users	Total awarded images
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	Image of the day	Top pick	Top pick nominations	Total submitted
Backyard
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Amateur hosting facility
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Professional, scientific grade data
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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.
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	9863230
PixInsight job	3NN24ZZU5OW6WGYBLO9MN2V6LIUNC634
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	TASK_LOG

RA (center)	17h29m36s.84
RA (top/left)	17h16m12s.20
RA (top/right)	16h56m51s.37
RA (bottom/right)	17h48m09s.42
RA (bottom/left)	17h55m12s.93

Dec (center)	-77°34′27″.7
Dec (top/left)	-75°31′20″.6
Dec (top/right)	-79°01′12″.9
Dec (bottom/right)	-79°34′28″.4
Dec (bottom/left)	-75°56′23″.2

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The magnificent spiraling molecular cloud of Apus

The magnificent spiraling molecular cloud of Apus

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The magnificent spiraling molecular cloud of Apus

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