Smoke Ring Nebula

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"The Ring Nebula (also catalogued as Messier 57, M57 or NGC 6720) is a planetary nebula in the northern constellation of Lyra. Such objects are formed when a shell of ionized gas is expelled into the surrounding interstellar medium by a red giant star, which was passing through the last stage in its evolution before becoming a white dwarf.

This nebula was discovered by the French astronomer Charles Messier while searching for comets in late January 1779.  Messier 57 is located south of the bright star Vega, which forms the northwestern vertex of the Summer Triangle asterism. The central star, at magnitude 14.8, is difficult to spot."

Date :  July 2013
Location : Backridge Observatory, Spruce Knob, West Virginia

Equipment used :
 Lens or telescope -- Homemade 16" Newtonian with MPCC
 Mount -- AP 1200
 Camera -- QSI 583wsg with Lodestar guider

Acquistion Software : ACP, MaxIm DL, Focusmax
Processing Software : MaxIm DL, Photoshop

Exposure Detail : R(Ha)BG combine    Total hours 7.8