M27 -- bright, cropped image. Photo by Ari Heinze

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Messier 27, also called the Dumbell Nebula, is the shell of gas expelled by a dying, sunlike star. Stars much more massive than our sun die in violent supernova explosions -- and leave behind a very different-looking cloud of expanding gas.



Date/Time

August 2010

Equipment

20" Obsession Telescope on equatorial platform

Settings

SBIG ST8 CCD

Image processing

Dark subtraction, flatfielding, RGB level adjustment, cropping.

Dimensions have not been changed

Focus

Fair: telescope collimation was slightly imperfect.

Motion blur

Low.

Image noise

Moderate: typical for the film-speed setting.

Other technical comments

None.

Copyright 2011 Ari Heinze: all rights reserved.

However, requests for any reasonable use will likely be promptly granted by email.

Please email any request
to use this image to ariheinze[at]hotmail.com