M57, The Ring Nebula

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M57 is a planetary nebula in Lyra and is about 2,000 light years distant.  Planetary nebulae come in a variety of shapes.  This one, visually looks like a smoke ring even from urban skies.  From very dark sky and with large aperture telescopes, the central star may be visible.  In the top part of the image, the barred spiral galaxy IC 1296 is also visible.  This galaxy is substantially dimmer at magnitude 15.5 compared to M57 at 8.8.  Special processing was used to bring out this galaxy in this image.

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Date:  5/12/2007

Location:  CRO

Telescope:  LX200 10" SCT, f/10

Mount:  AP-1200

Camera:  Hutech modified Canon 350D, ISO 800

Exposure Count:  16 @ 5 minutes, 1 hours, 20 minutes total exposure.

Guiding:  CCD Soft with ST402ME, Orion 80ED

Previous Attempts

6/30/2006

5/30/2004