I'm still getting the hang of the RC. But I like getting some close-up shots like this of smaller targets. I may work on this again sometime. Feedback welcome. I'm going to try another collimation session as soon as the weather clears again and less business travel.
"Messier 76 (M76), also known as the Little Dumbbell Nebula, is a planetary nebula located in the constellation
Perseus. The nebula lies at an approximate distance of 2,500 light-years from Earth and has an apparent magnitude of 10.1. It has the designations NGC 650 and NGC 651 in the New General Catalogue as it was once believed to consist of two separate emission nebulae.
The Little Dumbbell Nebula is sometimes also called the Cork Nebula or the Barbell Nebula. It occupies an area of 2.7 by 1.8 arc minutes of apparent sky, which corresponds to a spatial diameter of only 1.23 light years. The nebula’s size and faintness make it one of the most difficult Messier objects to observe.Messier 76 lies in the eastern part of
Perseus constellation, next to the border with
Andromeda. It is quite easy to find because it is located just south of
Cassiopeia’s W asterism and about a degree north-northwest of the magnitude 4.0 star Alseiph, Phi Persei. The nebula is in the same region of the sky as the
Andromeda Galaxy (M31).
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