Imaged the planetary nebula M57 (The Ring Nebula) on the night of August 19, 2023. M57 has an apparent magnitude (v) of 8.8 and an apparent size of ~1.5x1 arcmin.
Per NASA (reference:
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2017/messier-57-the-ring-nebula): "M57, or the Ring Nebula, is a planetary nebula, the glowing remains of a sun-like star. The tiny white dot in the center of the nebula is the star’s hot core, called a white dwarf. M57 is about 2,000 light-years away in the constellation Lyra, and is best observed during August. Discovered by the French astronomer Antoine Darquier de Pellepoix in 1779, the Ring Nebula has an apparent magnitude of 8.8 and can be spotted with moderately sized telescopes."
Imaged with a William Optics GT81 at F4.7 (382 mm focal length) using Flat6A II field flattener/0.8x reducer, UVIRcut filter, and ZWO ASI 533MC Pro.
Total integration time of ~2 hours: 55 subs at Gain = 100 with an exposure time of 120 seconds.
All images pre-processed using Pixinsight's weighted batch pre-processing script (WBPP) to perform calibration, debayering, registration, local normalization, and integration. Background removed using GradXpert. Initial post-processing in Pixinsight: spectrophotometric color calibration, blur x terminator, and noise x terminator. Masked stretch, generalized hyperbolic stretch, curves adjustment, HDR transformation using EasyHDR script, local histogram transformation, and color saturation adjustment.
Original version: M57 OSC RGB image (cropped)
Rev B: M57 OSC RGB image, starless (cropped)
Rev C: M57 OSC RGB image (uncropped)
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