Dumbbell Nebula

[Graeme]

Messier 27 - The Dumbbell Nebula. A Planetary Nebula in the constellation of Vulpecula. Captured last night. Just 7 x 4 minute exposures, then the clouds rolled in!

Dumbbell Nebula-01-EL.jpg

Our own Sun will look something like this in 5 billion years or so!

Regards

Graeme

[HansV]

Very good! Keep 'em coming!

[Graeme]

Cheers Hans. It's better than I expected for just 28 minutes of data.

[ChrisGreaves]

... The Dumbbell Nebula. A Planetary Nebula in the constellation of Vulpecula. Captured last night. Just 7 x 4 minute exposures, ...

The more I think I learn of the technique, the more I am impressed.

The Dumbbell Nebulais a wispy, gaseous, large fuzzy object, possibly not detectable to my old eyes, even on a cloudless night here in Bonavista (where cloudless means I can't SEE the water vapour, but it is still there, interfering with massless photons at a 1,360-year point of their endless journey to elsewhere.

And in steps Graeme with his off-the-shelf equipment, and with the aplomb of an old-time steam-locomotive engine driver, adjusts knobs and levers, and manages to freeze what would otherwise be a wobbling mass of photons from about a thousand stars (by a crude binary chop of the image to a 1/64 portion in MSPaint and tagging with the yellow spray-can) AND the nebula itself to a crisp clear image of each star AND the mass of gas ...I am not speechless; I just don't have the words when I contemplate the magnitude of all this task.

... for just 28 minutes of data ...

Cheers, Chris

[Graeme]

The more I think I learn of the technique, the more I am impressed.

Yeah, me too! There's hardly a session that goes without something going wrong! This particular session refused to complete the auto focus routine. This method measures the diameter (half flux radius) of every star in an image and averages it. Then it puts the telescope out of focus and incrementally brings it back then out of focus again the other way. These data are plotted on a graph so that the lowest point of the hyperbolic curve is the perfect focus. It kept telling me there was no change in HFR and so aborted. I would have got another half dozen exposures in before the clouds came without this!

Then I lost the USB connection to the mount at the end of the session so there are no flat frames to remove the dust donuts on the sensor or the vignetting. I cropped out the dark corners.

I can't think of a more frustrating hobby!

Not sure if this is readable without a Discord account, but here's a 5Mb version: Dumbell Nebula_01.jpg

Regards

Graeme

[HansV]

Yes, I can view it. Wow!

[Graeme]

Yes, I can view it. Wow!

Brilliant! I'll put the Iris Nebula image up.

[kdock]

How stunningly beautiful Graeme!

Kim

[Graeme]

Thanks Kim.

Planetary nebulas are very photogenic!

My book of 100 best astrophotography targets calls August Planetary and Emission Nebular month, so lets hope the skies are clear!

Regards

Graeme