Messier 27 - the Dumbbell Nebula
Messier 27 (NGC 6853) in the constellation Vulpecula is a show piece object that always is worth the visit on summer and fall evenings. It is relative bright so it makes a great target for astrophotographers as well. Below is my best effort to date, though I think I missed focus just a tad. I had lots of problems taking these. I took 30 images and only came up with about 16 that were usable. Set screws in the T-ring were probably loose as tracking and north alignment were quite good.
Image taken with Celestron Nexstar11 telescope, Meade F6.3 focal reducer, and Canon 300D Rebel at cassegrain focus. Camera was set at ASA 400 with 3 minute exposures. Manually tracked with A1010 telescope, Televue 2.5X Powermate, and Stellcam2 video camera. Temperature was 64 to 58°F, 40% humidity, mostly clear sky, absolutely no wind, and turbulence varied between 6 and 5/10.
I created some wallpaper size images as well 1600×1200, 1280×1024, and 1024×768.
July 28th, 2006 at 9:16 pm
That is REALLY quite nice.
July 29th, 2006 at 1:14 am
I am pretty amazed you can get a photo like that just miles from a large city with all the light noise.
July 29th, 2006 at 3:08 pm
Very nice!!
July 29th, 2006 at 4:59 pm
Like they probably say at the editor’s desk - “real nice art!” Missed focus by a tad, I’m too dazzled by the size, shape, texture, and all the colors, even the stars. As for the wallpaper, I still use your moon shot from back in January (moon-2006-01-10-0343.jpg). I don’t see it in your archives but it is similar to the gibbous in February 2006.
Thanks, peter
July 29th, 2006 at 6:46 pm
Thanks all!
I’m amazed at the ability of current software tools to coax the subtle colors and details from a bunch of dim, unimpressive images. The trifid nebula and the dumbbell are great to photograph as they have wonderful contrasting colors. It looks like 3 minute exposures and stacks of 15 or more images are needed. Unfortunately, that means an hour or more of manual guiding per image til I upgrade some equipment and write or buy some guiding software.