The Dumbbell Nebula, Messier 27 (M27, NGC 6853), is perhaps the finest planetary nebula in the sky, and was the first planetary nebula ever discovered. On July 12, 1764, Charles Messier, while cataloging objects that were NOT comets (he was a comet hunter and cataloged objects in order not to hunt at their location in the future), discovered this new and fascinating class of objects and describes this one as an oval nebula without stars. It got its shape when its central star (the star's remnant "white dwarf" can be seen in the center of the nebula) cast off its outer shell of gas. The name "Dumb-bell" goes back to John Herschel.
This is the the type of nebula our Sun will produce when its nuclear fusion stops in about 4 billion years and it also casts off its outer shell of gas. M27 is located about 1,000 light years from us and can be seen with binoculars in the constellation Vulpecula.

This image is a composite of data taken through my Astro-Tech 6" Ritchey Chretien (AT6RC) reflector telescope at 1370mm focal length
and my new Telescope Engineering Company (TEC) 140 (5.5") refractor telescope at 980mm focal length.

This is a 100% center crop.

To see largest available size, please click on "Original" at bottom of page.
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Dates:
July, 13,14,15, 2010
Aug 4, 2010
Location:
Ft. Griffin State Historic Site, Texas
Telescopes:
Astro-Tech 6" Ritchey-Chretien at f/9 1370mm focal length
TEC 140 at f/7 980mm focal length
Mount:
Astro-Physics Mach1 guided by the ST-10XE internal and external guide chips
Camera:
SBIG ST-10XE at prime focus with CFW8 and Astronomik LHaRGB filters
Camera Control:
CCDSoft
Exposures:
L - 194 mins with 13 (2 from TEC) exposures at 10 min each; 8 exposures at 8 min each all 1X1
Ha - 150 mins with 8 exposures at 15 mins each; 1 exposure at 30 mins all 1x1
Red - 88 mins with 11 (4 from TEC) exposures at 8 mins each; binned 2x2
Green - 120 mins with 15 (5 from TEC) exposures at 8 mins each; binned 2x2
Blue - 120 mins with 15 (5 from TEC) exposures at 8 mins each; binned 2x2
Exposure time:
L - 3 hrs 14 mins; Ha - 2 hrs 30 mins; R - 1 hr 28 min; G - 2 hrs; B - 2 hrs
Total Time:
11 hrs 12 mins
(includes 2 hrs 12 mins from TEC)
Processing:
In both the AT6RC RGB data and the TEC 140 RGB data, for the nebula only,
Ha was blended into the R channel at 80%, the G channel at 15% and B channel at 20%.
The unbinned AT6RC data has an image scale of 1.02 arc/sec per pixel
This image is scaled to the unbinned TEC 140 data at 1.43 arc/sec per pixel
CCDStack; Registar; Photoshop CS2