M76, also known as the Little Dumbbell, is a planetary nebula located in the constellation Perseus. It is situated at a distance of approximately 2500 light-years from Earth, which is relatively close for a deep-sky object. Its apparent magnitude is around 10.1 mag, with the central star at about 15.9 mag. It has designations NGC 650 and NGC 651 in the New General Catalog, as it was once thought to consist of two separate emission nebulae.

The history of understanding this object is, in my opinion, as fascinating as its characteristics. M76 was discovered by the French astronomer Pierre Méchain on September 5, 1780. Méchain reported his discovery to his friend and colleague, Charles Messier, who later added the nebula to his catalogue of deep-sky objects on October 21. William Herschel suspected M76 to be a double nebula with two components touching each other and cataloged them as two separate objects. The nebula was later included in the New General Catalog (NGC) as NGC 650 and NGC 651, with the latter denoting the eastern part of M76. Herschel described the object as "two nebulae close to each other. Both very bright. Separation 2'. One is in the southwest, and the other in the northeast." He later added, "the nebulae merge into each other."

More scientific data came from the research of the English amateur astronomer and pioneer of spectroscopy, William Huggins. In 1866, he discovered that the spectrum of the nebula is characteristic of gaseous emission. He wrote, "Both parts of this nebula exhibit a gaseous spectrum. Certainly, only the brightest of the three usually occurring lines were visible. The second line is probably also present." He likely referred to the typical lines for planetary nebulae, such as H-alpha, He I, and OIII. The results of my spectral measurements, traditionally found below the image, confirm the presence of all three ;)

Lastly, a few words about the image itself. Unfortunately, the background falls short of perfection, mainly due to infrequent dithering (I do it manually, and during one of the breaks between frame shifts, I fell asleep in the car ;) ).

Technical Details / Data Acquisition:
Telescope: TS 200/1000 ONTC, PO Uranus-C (IMX 585), 90% out of 12220 x 0.95 sec. [August 12, 2023]
Telescope: TS 200/1000 ONTC, ASI 294 MC Pro, SA 200 (spectrum) - 18 x 20 sec. [August 18, 2023]