M76, The Little Dumbbell Nebula

Click image for larger version.

M76 is a small planetary nebula in the constellation of Perseus.  Like its big brother M27, it gets its name from the obvious lobed appearance of the shells of gas coughed off from its parent star.  At only about 2 arc minutes across, M76 needs a lot of focal length to photograph well.  This particular image was shot at f/6.3 or at about a 1,500 mm focal length and has been rather drastically cropped.  I'll most likely go back and revisit this object at f/10 to better reveal the detail of the nebula.

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Date:  10/3/2008

Location:  Okie-Tex Star Party

Telescope:  LX200 10" SCT @ f/6.3

Mount:  AP-1200 GTOCP3

Camera:  Hutech Modified Canon 350D @ ISO 800

Exposure Count:  7 x 10 min, 70 minutes total exposure

Guiding:  SBIG ST402ME, CCDSoft