Messier 27 – “Dumbbell Nebula” (Jim Raskett)

Messier 27 – “Dumbbell Nebula”

From Messier-Objects.com

Messier 27 (M27), also known as the Dumbbell Nebula, Diabolo Nebula or Apple Core Nebula, is a planetary nebula in Vulpecula. The Dumbbell Nebula is large in size and quite bright, which makes it a popular object among amateur astronomers. It can be seen in binoculars and small telescopes.The nebula covers an area of 8 by 5.6 arc minutes of the apparent sky and has a linear radius of 1.44 light years. Its faint halo stretches out to more than 15 arc minutes. M27 lies at an approximate distance of 1,360 light years, or 417 parsecs, from Earth and has an apparent magnitude of 7.5. It has the designation NGC 6853 in the New General Catalogue.Messier 27 is the second brightest planetary nebula in the sky, second only to the Helix Nebula in Aquarius, and probably the easiest one to observe because it has a higher surface brightness than the Helix and is therefore easier to find.Planetary nebulae are what our Sun will produce when it nears the end of its life and nuclear fusion stops in its core. These nebulae are formed when evolved giant stars eject their outer envelopes, exposing the hot core of the star, which then ionizes the surrounding cloud of expelled material with ultraviolet light. The clouds keep expanding until they dissipate into the surrounding space.The central region of M27 contains dark and bright knots which vary in size and shape. Some are symmetrical and have tails while others do not. The knots are anywhere from 17 to 56 billion kilometres (11 to 35 billion miles) in size and each of them has a mass three times that of our planet.

First time imaging this beautiful planetary nebula (first time imaging any planetary nebula).The last of three datasets that I captured in six cloud interrupted nights over the past two weeks.This target is very bright, especially in 240 second subs. Processing was smooth, but I really struggle with what I want to see in a finished result.Like lots of deep sky objects, there are as many versions of this target as images on Astrobin.I was hoping to bring out more of the outer shell, but at about 5.5 hours of integration, this is the best that I could do. I am very new to using Generalized Hyperbolic Stretch in Pixinsight, so hopefully I will take another swing at the data when I get more proficient with GHS.Even at my low GHS skill level, it is an amazing piece of code.

Thanks for looking and comments very welcome!
Jim

Original
C
D
E
Final
F

D

Description: Crop

Uploaded: ...

E

Description: Added more saturation to the nebula.

Uploaded: ...

F

Description: Some of the background mottling removed.

Uploaded: ...

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Status	Advanced success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	8451969
PixInsight job	SEPH2BNGCWQL9AS9NH17Q5DDK0OT4CWI
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	TASK_LOG

RA (center)	19h59m36s.66
RA (top/left)	20h01m57s.61
RA (top/right)	20h02m05s.83
RA (bottom/right)	19h57m14s.53
RA (bottom/left)	19h57m08s.77

Dec (center)	+22°43′27″.10
Dec (top/left)	+22°09′06″.3
Dec (top/right)	+23°16′06″.2
Dec (bottom/right)	+23°17′43″.0
Dec (bottom/left)	+22°10′42″.8

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