M27 - Dumbbell Nebula (2022)

Messier 27 (a.k.a. M27) is a planetary nebula located 1200 light-years away in the constellation of Vulpecula and is approximately 5 light-years across. Its odd structure leads to interesting names such as the Apple Core Nebula or more commonly the Dumbbell Nebula. The structure of this object results from the expulsion of gas from a dying star and then having the remaining progenitor white dwarf star ionize the gas so it shines. This particular PN has a strong oxygen (OIII) component as evidenced by the blue-green regions. The red is due to hydrogen (Ha). The formation of the interesting shape is hard to picture because of our orientation, however, what is known is there is a bi-polar influence which is why it does not appear as a sphere like the nearby Ring Nebula.

I imaged this over seven nights at the end of July without any difficulties. Processing turned out quite fun as it is the first image where I processed it completely on my new processing computer. The speed of this new system is quite impressive. For example, it only took 1hr 10min to stack 372 exposures using WBPP where it would have taken approximately 6 hrs using the laptop. I made a video of the new system if you are interested (Link - https://youtu.be/SyyDdTT47WM).

This version was a big improvement over my previous attempts. For one thing I used my AT115 vs. the Orion ED80. It is still a small telescope so I had to crop it quite a bit but I captured more data than before. Another thing I did was use Bill Blanshan's new star reduction methods for PixInsight in processing. The methods worked surprisingly well as the stars were reduced with only a small amount of artifacts on large stars and I was able to fix those without too much effort.

 

M27 - Dumbbell Nebula (2022) 

Dates: 7-19-22, 7-20, 7-21, 7-22, 7-25, 7-26, 7-30
Camera: ZWO ASI1600MM-Pro
Telescope: Astro-Tech AT115EDT 115mm Refractor Telescope
Barlow: None
Focal Length: 805mm (644mm w/ FR)
f/7
Focal Reducer: 0.8x AstroTech Field Flatterner/Focal Reducer
Mount: Orion Sirius
Filter Wheel: ZWO EFW 8 x 1.25"
Filter: ZWO Ha, OIII, R, G, B
Focuser: ZWO EAF
Autoguiding: ASI120 Mini attached to an Agena 50mm Guide Scope/ZWO 60mm Guidescope
Exposure: Ha 85 x 300, OIII 85 x 300, R 74 x 60, G 71 x 60, B 57 x 60
Gain: 139
Offset 20
Sensor Temp: 0 C
Processing: NINA, PixInsight, Photoshop, Topaz DeNoiseAI, StarXTerminator.

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