Mosaic of NGC 6604, M16, M17, M18 and IC4701 (Sean Liang)

Mosaic of NGC 6604, M16, M17, M18 and IC4701

Link: https://www.onebackpacker.com/behind-the-lens/mosaic-of-ngc-6604-m16-m17-m18-and-ic4701

Mosaic of NGC 6604, M16, M17, M18 and IC4701

Link: https://www.onebackpacker.com/behind-the-lens/mosaic-of-ngc-6604-m16-m17-m18-and-ic4701

We live in a spiral galaxy called 'the Milky Way Galaxy'. It's characterised by several well-defined spiral arms, each containing billions of stars and thousands of gas clouds. When we look into the galactic centre, the view is obscured by the arms sitting between us and the centre bulge. This image shows a small portion of 'the Sagittarius Arm' in the night sky.

The most striking feature is perhaps the beautiful nebulosity. Those are interstellar dust and clouds, mostly made of hydrogen, ionised by nearby stars. Occasionally, these clouds contract due to gravity. When enough hydrogen particles are squeezed together with enough forces, nuclear fusion begins and new stars are born. Our solar system was born this way billions of years ago.

The blue regions in the centre are M16 and M17, also known as the Eagle Nebula and the Omega Nebula. Those are powerful star nurseries where thousands of new stars are being born. The radiation from the newborn stars ionised the nearby clouds, causing them to glow.

The dark patches in the background are thick and dense molecular clouds. They appear to be black because visible light can't penetrate through them. Interestingly, a large proportion of those molecular clouds are made of organic molecules, signalling that the raw material of life is truly abundant throughout the universe. Maybe given the right environment and enough time, some of those molecules are bound to assemble into a self-replicating sequence, of what we call life.

There are many other well-studied objects in this mosaic. From left to right are NGC 6604, M16, M17, M18 and IC4701.

(The data was acquired from Telescopelive, which I processed using pixinsight and photoshop.)

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 failed
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	5613215
PixInsight job	n/a
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	n/a

Image Index:

Contribution Index (beta):

Mosaic of NGC 6604, M16, M17, M18 and IC4701

Mosaic of NGC 6604, M16, M17, M18 and IC4701

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Contribution Index (beta):

Mosaic of NGC 6604, M16, M17, M18 and IC4701

Mosaic of NGC 6604, M16, M17, M18 and IC4701

Equipment

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Description

Comments

Acquired at

Histogram

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