M27 is one of the brighter objects I imaged while we were enjoying the dark skies in Dell City, Texas.  This object was a brilliant blue in a single frame, and it was nice not to have to rely on faith that something was there.  

This image used only 1.8 hours of data. 

M27, also called the Dumbbell Nebula or Apple Core Nebula, is a planetary nebula – the gases expelled from a star before it becomes a white dwarf, lit up by that star.  It’s located in the Milky Way, approximately 1250 light years away, and it’s approximately 2.9 light years across, giving it an apparent size of 8 arcminutes.  It’s estimated to be 12,700 years old.

Planetary nebulae do not last long on an astronomy time scale because the expelled gases grow dimmer as they expand away from the central star.  I am glad I live in a time when we can observe them and they can be observed!

Isn’t our galaxy beautiful?

Camera geek info:

• Canon EOS 60D in manual mode, 2 minute exposure, ISO 1600
• Intervalometer
• Williams Optics Zenith Star 73 III APO telescope
• Williams Optics Flat 73A
• iOptron CEM40
• Dell City, Texas Bortle 2-3 dark skies

Frames:

• October 11, 2023 
  • Run 1
    • 54 2 minute lights 
    • 30 0.01 second flats
    • 30 0.01 second flat darks
  • 35 2 minute darks

Processing geek info:

• PixInsight
• BlurXterminator
• NoiseXterminator
• StarXTerminator
• Generalized Hyperbolic Stretch