M 97 - The Owl Nebula (Mirosław Stygar)

Celestial hemisphere: Northern · Constellation: Ursa Major (UMa) · Contains: M 97 · NGC 3587 · Owl Nebula

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M 97 - The Owl Nebula

Acquisition type: Lucky imaging

Powered byPixInsight

M 97 - The Owl Nebula

Acquisition type: Lucky imaging

M97 (NGC 3587), also known as the Owl Nebula, is a popular target among astrophotography enthusiasts, especially when paired with the nearby galaxy NGC 3556. It lies in the constellation Ursa Major, approximately 2030 light-years away from Earth, with an apparent magnitude of 9.9.

It was discovered by the French astronomer Pierre Méchain on February 16, 1781. Méchain, a colleague of Charles Messier, informed Messier of the discovery, and the nebula was subsequently observed by Messier himself a few weeks later. However, it owes its name to another astronomer, William Parsons, who sketched it in 1848 and described it as resembling the head of an owl.

Research from the late 1990s indicates the presence of a giant red halo extending around its inner shells, while amateur long-exposure images show a glow around M97 in the OIII band.

I'll be exploring this aspect as well as its spectrum in my future mini-project. By the way, despite the relatively short exposure time, many interesting galaxies in the background were captured, which serves as the best advertisement for the sky of the Beskid Niski Mountains (Poland).

Poland

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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
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	9754426
PixInsight job	n/a
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	n/a

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M 97 - The Owl Nebula

M 97 - The Owl Nebula

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M 97 - The Owl Nebula

M 97 - The Owl Nebula

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