Messier 57 - The Ring Nebula
Date: July 20, 2020
Cosgrove’s Cosmos Catalog ➤#0038
Messier 57 - The Ring Nebula (click to enlarge)
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About the Target
Messier 57, also known as NGC 6720, and the “Ring Nebula” is located about 2400 light-years away in the constellation Lyra. M57 is a planetary nebula - an expanding shell of gas and dust expelled by its star in the last stages of its life. The outer shell is expanding at a rate of ~one arcsecond per century. The blue-green color of the central area is due to doubly ionized oxygen.
Annotated Image
Annotated image of M57 was created with Pixinsight’s Imagesolver and AnotateImage scripts.
Location in the Sky
IAU/Sky & Telescope Constellation Chart of Lyra with the location of the M57 indicated by a yellow arrow.
About the Project
This is not the first time I have tried to image this famous object. I tried it last year (2019) when I got my first telescope platform up and running.
My first attempt at M57 from 2019 (Click to zoom)
This is a tough object for my scope and it is very small. It measures about 1.0 x 1.5 arcseconds. This is small for my current scope - to put it mildly. But I was happy that I pulled more detail out of it this year. I can see the red-orange of the outer band and some structure in this part of the ring. I can clearly see the central star and the modulated dust and blue-green color of the central area.
But still so far from perfect - always more to learn!
Commentary from 7-29-21 when adding this project to the website
The amount of detail shown from this attempt compared to the first attempt is pretty significant and I am pretty happy about that. The processing necessary to bring this out was done well. The biggest problem this image has is how the noise reduction was done (very heavy-handed) and the fact that the background is a bit mottled. This is a common problem in the early images and a challenge that I am finally getting under control this year.
Capture Details
Lights
95 x 120 seconds
The total integration time is 3.1 hours
Cal Frames
not recorded.
Capture Hardware
Scope: William Optics 132mm FLT F/7 APO
Guide Scope: Apterna 60mm
Camera: ZWO ASI294MC-Pro
Guide Camera: ZWO ASI290Mini
Camera Rotator: Pegasus Astro Falcon
Focus Motor: Pegasus Astro Focus Cube 2
Mount: Ioptron CEM60Polar Alignment: Ioptron Ipolar integrated alignment cameras
Software
Capture Software: Control: PHD2 Guider, Sequence Generator Pro controller
Image Processing: Deepsky Stacker, Pixinsight, Photoshop, Coffee, extensive processing indecision and second guessing, and much swearing…..
During the Summer of 2020, whilst stuck at home because of Covid I became very in improving the automation of the platform and achieving a more precise framing of the shots I made…