M 97, the Owl Nebula, is a planetary nebula, located about 2030 light years from Earth in the constellation Ursa Major. It is thought to be around 8000 years old and has a diameter of about 0.91 light years. The nebula has a mass of around 0.13 solar masses, largely hydrogen, helium, nitrogen, oxygen and sulfur, with a density of less than 100 particles per cubic centimeter [1].
In contrast, the black hole at the center of M108 is estimated to be 24 million times more massive than our Sun. M108 is classified as a barred spiral galaxy with loosely wound spiral arms, although these structures are not clear. Its characteristic "surfboard" shape comes from our edge on view and the lack of an obvious bulge or core. It is one of the largest members of the Ursa Major cluster and part of the Virgo supercluster of galaxies. It is 46 million light years from Earth [2].
M 97 and M 108 were both discovered by Pierre Méchain over a three day period in 1781.
The image is from two nights, one in March using the ZWO 2600 mc and the second in April, using a ZWO 1600 mm and EFW. I split the 2600 images into RGB and then combined these with the filter data from the 1600.
[1]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Owl_Nebula[2]
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2018/messier-108
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