M 27 Dumbbell Nebula

Dumbbell Nebula
Dumbbell Nebula Luminance only

My LX600 was in the shop, so I bought some time on the 20" Dall-Kirkham telescope at Skygems Observatories.

  • AG 20-inch f/6.7 iDK telescope
  • FLI Proline 16803 CCD
  • 3 x 600 seconds luminance only
  • 4051px x 4056px
  • August 2020
Dumbbell Nebula
Dumbbell Nebula LRGB

  • AG 20-inch f/6.7 iDK telescope
  • FLI Proline 16803 CCD
  • 3 x 600 seconds L, 2 x 300 seconds each R, G and B
  • 3000px x 3000px
  • August 2020
Dumbbell Nebula
Dumbbell Nebula RGB

For contrast, one of the MicroObservatory telescopes took two each red, green and blue. Not a perfectly fair comparison, but it shows the difference in scale. The telescopes use a KAF-1400 sensor, which is 1400 x 1000 but binned 2x2 and cropped to 650 x 500 to fit on an older Mac screen. The observatory software was developed for use on donated Macintosh computers.

  • MicroObservatory (Donald) 6" f/4 modified Maksutov
  • 650 x 500 CCD
  • 2 x 60 seconds each R, G and B dark subtracted (no flat field)
  • 633px x 479px
  • August 2020
Dumbbell Nebula
Dumbbell Nebula with the 12" LX600

I'll call this first light for the recently repaired LX600. The moon was at 49% and the camera had no LPR filter.

  • 12" LX600
  • SBIG STF-8300EN CCD
  • 50 x 60 seconds luminance
  • 1661px x 1247px
  • September 2020
Dumbbell Nebula
Dumbbell Nebula in RGB with the 12" LX600

The Dumbbell is so bright that you can about take a picture of it with a Polaroid. Unfortunately, my sky is nearly as bright. This image lets the color fall where it will, based on the RGB subframes (no "white correction")

  • 12" LX600
  • SBIG STF-8300EN CCD
  • 30 x 100 seconds R & B
  • 40 x 100 seconds G
  • 2000px x 1331px
  • June 2022
Dumbbell Nebula
Another Dumbbell Nebula in RGB with the 12" LX600

This image forces the color to be between a gray background and a white star.

  • 12" LX600
  • SBIG STF-8300EN CCD
  • 50 x 50 seconds R & B
  • 65 x 50 seconds G
  • 2000px x 1366px
  • June 2022
Dumbbell Nebula
Dumbbell Nebula in Blue with the 12" LX600

This is the blue channel only from the RGB above. I put it here because I think it is interesting to see that a grayscale image has more of the signal we use to define the object than the color does. Color is important to the overall picture, but luminance is where the detail is located. I don't know what that means in the grander scheme, but it is interesting.

  • 12" LX600
  • SBIG STF-8300EN CCD
  • 30 x 100 seconds B
  • 2000px x 1381px
  • June 2022