M76, the Little Dumbbell Nebula is a perennial favorite of mine. I do it with every new hardware iteration. Here is one from my latest scope/camera combo.
The Little Dumbbell Nebula, also known as Messier 76, the Barbell Nebula, or the Cork Nebula, is a planetary nebula in the constellation Perseus. It was discovered by Pierre Méchain in 1780 and included in Charles Messier's catalog of comet-like objects as number 76. It was first recognised as a planetary nebula in 1918 by the astronomer Heber Doust Curtis. The structure is now classed as a bipolar planetary nebula. Distance to M76 is currently estimated as 2,500 light years, making the average dimensions about 1.23 ly across.
The total nebula shines at the apparent magnitude of +10.1 with its central star or planetary nebula nucleus (PNN) at +15.9v magnitude. The UV-light from the PNN is expanding outer layers that form the present nebula, and has the surface temperature of about 88,400 K. The whole planetary nebula is approaching us at 19.1 km/sec.
The Little Dumbbell Nebula derives its common name from its resemblance to the Dumbbell Nebula (M27) in Vulpecula. It was originally thought to consist of two separate emission nebulae and was thus given two catalog numbers in the NGC 650 and 651. Some consider this object to be one of the faintest and hardest to see objects in Messier's list.
(Wikipedia)
My Collections:
Abell Planetary Nebulae (Complete)GalaxiesMessier ObjectsPlanetary NebulaeSharpless 2 Objects
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