This is Messier 27; the Dumbbell Nebula. This is one of the largest planetary nebulae in the sky, formed from the nova of a medium-sized star, now a white dwarf. The central star can be seen in this image when zoomed in.
The Dumbbell Nebula (also known as the Apple Core Nebula, Messier 27, and NGC 6853) is a planetary nebula (nebulosity surrounding a white dwarf) in the constellation Vulpecula, at a distance of about 1360 light-years. It was the first such nebula to be discovered, by Charles Messier in 1764. At its brightness of visual magnitude 7.5 and diameter of about 8 arcminutes, it is easily visible in binoculars and is a popular observing target in amateur telescopes.
This is a HaGO image, meaning that Hydrogen Alpha was mapped to Red, Green wideband was mapped to Green, and Oxygen III was mapped to Blue. This method of image integration (described by Dylan O’Donnell, an amateur astrophotographer in Australia) provides a more realistic color than SHO narrowband.
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Image Info
- Imaged from the KPO field in Saint Cloud, Florida.
- Camera : ZWO ASI1600MM Pro
- Lens: Canon 100-400 f/5.6L lens, set to 386mm
- Mount: iOptron SmartEQ Pro
- Narrowband Hydrogen Alpha: 10 subframes of 300s = 50 min integration, assigned to Red
- Wideband Green: 12 subframes of 300s = 60 min integration, assigned to Green
- Narrowband Oxygen III: 11 subframes of 300s = 55 min integration, assigned to Blue
- Total integration time: 165 min = 2.75 hours.
- Captured via ASIAir Pro automation
- Optical tracking via ASIAir automation, currently using ST4 mount control via the ASI120MM-S guide camera
- Separate channels stacked and HaGO integrated in Astro Pixel Processor
- Image cropped, stretched, and noise processed in Nebulosity
- Final processing in Aperture