M81 M82 Feb 2023 (Michael Rex)

Celestial hemisphere: Northern · Constellation: Ursa Major (UMa) · Contains: Bode's Galaxy · Cigar Galaxy · HD85161 · HD85458 · HD85533 · HD85828 · HD86574 · M 81 · M 82 · NGC 3031 · NGC 3034 · NGC 3077

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M81 M82 Feb 2023

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M81 M82 Feb 2023

5 hours over two nights in between clouds, pouring rain, and even low elevation snow in So Cal. Cold nights seem to have imparted some pinched optics effect on my stars, so the data was downsampled heavily before processing. And the mirror will be coming out of the Newt for cleaning and reinstallation with a little more give.

Whatever IFN I may have picked up was low SNR and ragged, so the shadows dynamic range is fairly compressed. A couple spots might be visible against a dark border. Ha blending only came out fair. Okay for M81, but on M82 might have included some continuum light or just plain noise. The red seems to extend away in a few spots beyond the expected bilateral burst structure.

Still, I've shot this target every winter since starting AP in 2020, and this version has come out the best.

StarTools

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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
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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
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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	7240149
PixInsight job	NXD27JA0JM9NRL8P5GXFU0PCD9M8MYA0
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	TASK_LOG

RA (center)	09h58m52s.11
RA (top/left)	09h50m02s.89
RA (top/right)	09h50m30s.68
RA (bottom/right)	10h06m48s.42
RA (bottom/left)	10h08m09s.76

Dec (center)	+69°23′42″.5
Dec (top/left)	+70°31′58″.5
Dec (top/right)	+68°15′27″.7
Dec (bottom/right)	+68°13′55″.9
Dec (bottom/left)	+70°30′23″.5

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M81 M82 Feb 2023

M81 M82 Feb 2023

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M81 M82 Feb 2023

M81 M82 Feb 2023

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